


Unstuck In Time

by Ceallaigh



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Brief mention of Past Abuse, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time Blow Jobs, Fix-It, Fixing What JJ ruined, HEA, No Pregnancy, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rey Needs A Hug, Safe for those triggered by pregnancy, Sharing a Bed, Time Travel, Tros fix-it, Unfucking What JJ Fucked Up, Vaginal Sex, WBW, World Between Worlds, brief mention of a reylo child in a possible future, it doesn't stick, saving what you love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26879377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceallaigh/pseuds/Ceallaigh
Summary: "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff."--The Tenth Doctor, Dr. Who____________________"Ben once told me to let the past die to be who you were meant to be. It’s the other way around. To save him, I need to erase the future, because he will never be part of the reality I came from. I don’t need to alter my timeline. I need to fix his!”
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 36
Kudos: 143
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	1. Tatooine

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas. My theme was "Dormant Growth."
> 
> This fic is 100% canon compliant. I took every bad choice JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio made and used it for a springboard to something else that hopefully makes more sense. I've had this idea floating around in my head shortly after I saw TROS. 
> 
> Unstuck in Time is seven chapters long. I'll be updating regularly. It will earn its E rating. No content warnings for Chapter 1.
> 
> Title is in reference to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and the concept of no longer living from moment to moment in a linear fashion.

Tatooine summers always meant sandstorms. They sprung up during the hottest stretches, when the scorching heat from the vast desert plain collided head first with the strong westward wind. They suffocated anything in their path and covered everything in a new layer of silt and sand.

Rey was more than familiar with sandstorms after spending her formative years on Jakku. She’d become adept in spotting them on the horizon when they began to build up energy, and knew that it was best to head to shelter when they were still safely in the distance rather than gamble on not making it to cover while the storm descended around her. In her time living on Tatooine, she also learned that the sandstorms there were far worse than the ones she endured as a child. They could last for days, choking Tatoo and her twin from the sky until midday looked like a horrific version of night.

She managed to take cover in her subterranean home just as the first winds reached the Lars homestead. She originally came to Tatooine to honor her teacher Leia and her brother, burying their lightsabers in the desert in a solemn farewell. She had every intention of returning to her friends after her private remembrance. But a few days turned into a week, and a year turned into two, and she still found herself rooted to the same spot.

The home remained only partially habitable. She never found the energy to excavate more than part of the courtyard and the base of the crater, the kitchen, a fresher, and the front sitting room, which she had converted into a place to bunk down for the night. The walls were still scored with carbon, and she didn’t have the motivation to scrub it away. The home had been bombed out at some point. Nothing of any value remained.

But it wasn’t a home for her. It was just a stopping point where she found herself stuck, unwilling and unmotivated to move.

After a year of allowing the _Falcon_ to slowly bleach under the unforgiving suns, she finally docked it in Mos Eisley when she saved up enough credits from harvesting water. She earned enough money to buy essentials and enough water to trade with the Jawas for the rest.

It wasn’t living. It was just existing as the second year neared a close.

The storm howled outside well into the night, and Rey could not sleep. The wind screamed through every crack and crevice with a loud whistle, and the moisture collector in the courtyard rattled incessantly until something snapped off and slammed into the outer wall with a loud crash, another piece of junk she’d have to repair in the morning if she wanted fresh water.

Those bits of barely working garbage were what kept Rey anchored to the homestead. Her days were filled with work, constantly tinkering and repairing things until the suns went down and then dropping into a dreamless sleep, completely and utterly exhausted. She preferred it that way. If she was busy enough, she wouldn’t let her mind wander to the past.

She wouldn’t have to think about Ben Solo.

Part of her died with him on Exegol. What once was a singing bond between them now constantly ached like a phantom limb that was torn away. If she was busy enough, she didn’t have to concentrate on that gnawing pain that never went away. The Force had connected them, but when he died, he’d never emerged on the other side like Master Skywalker or General Organa. All she had to remember him was his tattered tunic and a festering wound in the Force.

He gave his life so that she could live, and she hated him for it. No, she hated the Force for it. Why did it connect them so powerfully only to take him away?

She despised the Force, and she gladly turned her back on it shortly after she buried the lightsabers in the sand. Sure, she still possessed the one she crafted. But she hadn’t picked it up since that day. It meant nothing to her now. She had half a mind to bury it in the desert as well, but like every other plan in her life, it sat trapped in the apathy that surrounded her on all sides. Dust collected on it where she had placed it on the heavy wooden console in the sitting room. She wasn’t a Jedi; she had decided that long ago. They used her and then left her for dead. They sure as hell were silent when she begged them to give Ben back to her. She didn’t want to carry their weapon, because all it did was bring her more pain.

Rey rolled over in her narrow bunk in an attempt to go back to sleep. A thin sheen of sweat covered her skin, and the sheet clung to her. The ventilation system barely kept the dwelling at a comfortable temperature. It was another repair just waiting to happen. She tossed and turned a few more times before conceding she would not be sleeping that night.

With a huff, she rose for the day. She could feel the suns nearing the horizon when she folded up her bedroll and tucked it in the corner. She walked over to the console where she left her water bottle the night before and took a large gulp from it. The water was warm and stale, but she swallowed it down anyway. Next, she grabbed the hunk of scrap metal she’d found early in her time on the planet and carved yet another hashmark into the table’s surface, each marking a day that she didn’t have the energy to leave. In another week or two, there would be over six hundred little lines dug into the console.

She glanced at the holocomm she had set beside her lightsaber. She stopped communicating with her friends nearly a year ago. It didn’t stop them from leaving messages. After a while, she stopped checking the messages all together. She was sick of hearing message after message asking if she was alright or imploring her to come home.

She wasn’t alright, and she was sick of them calling her home like a pet dog that would come running to any beck and call. Something inside her snapped in that moment. Rage bubbled up from her core, and darkness clawed its way into her. Without realizing what she was doing, she called her dusty lightsaber to her hand and flicked it on without even thinking. The blade hummed to life and cast the room in its golden glow.

She gritted her teeth and swept the comm off the console, splintering it into a thousand bits as the ‘saber made contact. A scream tore from her throat and she brought the blade down onto the console itself, hacking at it over and over again until the heavy table was just a pile of smoldering kindling.

Only then did realize what she had done. The darkness flowed through her so quickly that the lack of control terrified her. It was so easy to let it wrap her in its folds and tap into her sorrow and rage. Rey quickly snapped her ‘saber off and extinguished the blade. She stared at the hilt in horror for several long seconds before hurling the weapon as far away from her as she could. Somewhere in the darkened hallway it ricocheted off a wall and crashed to the floor.

And then she felt it. Something tore free inside of her that ached more than anything had ever hurt before. It bubbled up from deep within and suffocated on all sides. The grief and disappointment of everything she lost in that final battle was no longer something she could push down and ignore. It was staring her in the face, and it was too much to bear. What began as a hiccup quickly evolved into a keening wail. Unable to support her own weight, Rey dropped to her knees and began to sob. She cried until there were no more tears to shed.

She gave the Force everything, and in return, it left her with nothing.

o.o.o.o  
  


It was midmorning by the time Rey dragged the console remnants out to the courtyard. The suns were already high in the cloudless sky. The sandstorm had moved on, and oppressive heat had replaced the previous night’s gloom. There was no salvaging the table. Even in fragments, the wooden bits were heavy and unwieldy. A tiny vacuum droid scurried around, sweeping up the sand that spilled into the crater during the storm.

The pile of junk could wait, Rey reminded herself. She needed to repair the moisture collector if she wanted the water to keep flowing. Tossing the last bit of wood on to the pile, she retreated back into the house to find her tools. Once inside its cool confines, she quickly ran her fingers through her hair and plaited it into a simple braid. Her hair had grown to where it reached the middle of her back. She secured it with the hair tie she had left wrapped around her wrist. It would only get in the way as she stripped the vaporator down while fixing it.

She located her toolkit where she’d left it and slung it over her shoulder: a hexaspanner and a small hand held plasma torch. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to get more complicated than that. She scrubbed her palms over her face, steeling herself for the heat outside. This all would have been so much easier had she slept better the night before.

When she returned to the courtyard, she spied a book resting on top of the rubble. It reminded her of the ancient Jedi texts she had stolen from Ahch-To. But it definitely wasn’t one of the books she had taken.

And it certainly wasn’t there when she briefly ducked into the dwelling.

How could she be so stupid, she berated herself for letting her guard down. She had an unwelcome visitor, and her lightsaber was lost in some dark corner of her hovel. Reaching into her toolkit, Rey retrieved a spanner. It was heavy in her hand and offered a small semblance of security.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, holding the spanner in front of her like a dagger.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” a woman’s voice called from the storage shed’s entrance to the courtyard. An older Torgruta stepped out from the shadows, her tall montrals jutting up from beneath her grey hood and even longer lekku draped over each of her shoulders. The woman moved slowly toward Rey, only armed with a tall, slender staff. It resembled more of a walking stick and less of a weapon. Her white facial markings stood out as a stark contrast against her ochre skin. She was tall, and despite her age, looked every bit a warrior.

“Don’t come any closer,” Rey warned, her spanner held in front of her.

The woman waved her hands, and the wrench flew from Rey’s hand and clattered against the ground.

“You’ll never find what you’re looking for here, Rey,” the woman added.

Rey backed up a step and surveyed her options. The stairwell to the surface was only a few strides away. Or she could fight, using a hunk of wood from the junk pile if she needed. “How do you know who I am?” she snarled.

The woman remained calm, almost serene in how she carried herself. Where Rey was a flurry of emotion, the Togruta was at peace. “I’ve been watching you long enough to know that every night you call to the Force, praying that he will return to you someday,” the woman explained. “But deep in your heart, you know Ben Solo will never come back.”

Fear charged by fight or flight surged through Rey, fueled by the anger and grief that was always simmering below the surface since she had departed Exegol so long ago. Lightning started to crackle in her palm. She’d only managed to call the dark weapon once before when rage had taken over all rational thought. Electricity hissed and popped as the energy grew. Before she realized what she was doing, she flung her hand in front of her and bolts of energy flew from her hand toward the intruder who deftly blocked the lightning and dissipated it with her slender staff.

“You’re anchored to a planet you despise, barely living. You have become stuck in time because half of your soul is missing,” the Togruta explained, “and it is slowly killing you.”

Angry tears streamed down Rey’s face. Her injuries from Exegol healed long ago. Ben saw to it with his own life. But the greatest wound that she still carried in her heart was fresh and raw. “Why are you telling me this?” Rey pleaded.

“I want to help you,” the woman responded.

“Who are you?”

The woman took a step closer to her. Rey did not fight when she drew her into an embrace. She was so much taller than Rey. When she wrapped her arm around her, the torrent flowed forth and Rey collapsed into her and started to cry.

“My name is Ahsoka Tano,” the Togruta said, stroking small circles into Rey’s back with the palm of her hand.“Do not be angry with Ben. It is not his fault he cannot contact you,” Ahsoka continued. “The Sith spirits claimed his soul and destroyed it before he could cross to the Life After to find his family. He is no more.”

Rey sobbed into Ahsoka’s shoulder. She wished the ground would swallow her so that she would be no more as well. It was too painful to be half of a dyad while the other was gone.

Ahsoka took a step back and cupped Rey’s face with her free hand. “I don’t tell you this to hurt you further,” she said.

“Then why are you here if there’s nothing we can do?” Rey said.

Ahsoka guided Rey back to the junk pile. “Tell me, Rey,” she said, “what do the Jedi texts you stole tell you about the Chain Worlds Theorem?”

“Not much,” Rey replied, swiping at her running nose with the back of her hand. “What I have is incomplete, and my translating skills are not that great. Something about it being a Scatter Vergence, where energy bends.”

“Not just energy,” Ahsoka added. “Time itself.”

The Togruta tipped her staff at the book, and it opened. The pages turned on their own until they came to rest on a page Rey recognized. The drawings were similar to what she had seen in one of her texts that had referenced the Theorem. “Your texts only explain part of it,” Ahsoka stated, “but my book reveals the rest.”

Rey scanned the page. The text was handwritten on sheets of parchment, the ink faded over the hundreds of years since its creation. The part she understood was written in an older version of Basic, the Aurebesh lettering a little more primitive than the modern script. The majority of the page was written in a script she did not understand, but when she pressed her finger to the page, she recoiled as the page itself burned the pad of her finger.

“That’s Sith,” Rey said, sucking on the singed digit.

“You are correct,” Ahsoka answered, waving the text shut. “The Jedi understood only part of the Theorem. The Sith understood the other parts. Their worlds were so diametrically opposed that neither would ever grasp a full understanding. So it sat, essentially idle for millennia, because zealots refused to share their knowledge on either side. It is probably for the best; the Theorem would’ve been used as a weapon in either of their hands.”

Rey looked at Ahsoka suspiciously. “What are you, Jedi or Sith?”

“I’m neither,” the woman answered. “I am a Traveler, and I can help you bring Ben Solo home.”

“But you just said he was gone forever,” Rey questioned.

Ahsoka’s mouth turned up in an all-knowing smile. “That’s because you keep thinking time is linear,” she quipped. “It’s about time we got you unstuck in time.”

Rey took a step back from her. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Search your feelings, Rey,” Ahsoka said. “I have spoken to you before.”

Rey closed her eyes and let her mind wander. She stretched out into the Force. She’d never met a Torgruta before. She would’ve remembered their distinct features. Her mind opened and memories from the past came bubbling to the fore of her mind. There she was, in a snippet from the past. Ahsoka had spoken to her briefly; she’d been one of the voices that whispered to her as she lay motionless on the cold stone floor of the Sith cathedral. She had implored her to rise and defeat the evil that was her grandfather.

“I heard you on Exegol,” Rey said.

Ahsoka nodded. “I didn’t want all the dead Jedi to have all the fun,” she explained. “I needed to make contact with you then, so that we could have this conversation now. You had to defeat the Emperor then so that we could meet in this moment.”

She held her hand out to Rey. It was a proposal that led to the unknown. Suddenly, after two years of stagnation, Rey no longer felt rooted to the homestead. It was time to shed the inertia and start to live instead of waiting to die.

“Come with me,” Ahsoka implored. Rey turned to get her things. Her satchel and lightsaber were still in the house.

“Leave them, Rey,” she said. “You already have everything you need for this journey.”

Ahsoka squeezed her hand and led her into the darkened shed. At the far end of the room, a brilliant white maw spun against the far wall, its opening circled by wolves made of nothing more than light itself. It was a passageway that wasn’t there a few minutes before that led to the unknown. Rey’s breath hitched in her chest as she tried to make sense of it.

“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.

“Welcome to the World Between Worlds.”


	2. World Between Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If a Traveler decides to make an intervention, they need to be cognizant of the ripple effect,” Ahsoka explained. “It is possible to change the course of an event, but one is most successful if that interaction with the past creates the least number of ripples that will resonate in the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for Chapter 2. There are TWO of them:
> 
> 1.) Brief mention of a Reylo child in one of several possible futures. If you would like to skip the paragraph, it starts with, "Neither option seemed to phase Ahsoka in the least." It is safe to resume reading with the paragraph that starts, "Rey stepped back and closed her eyes."
> 
> 2.) Brief mention of past abuse (Ben) with non-graphic mention of blood. If you want to skip that paragraph, it starts with "She needed to find a different moment in his life that was closer to the present." It is safe to resume reading with, "Moving on, she closed her eyes and reached out into their fractured bond for a sign that would point her in the right direction."

The portal sealed behind them the moment they stepped beyond reality and entered the World Between Worlds. It was everything and nothing at the same time. Pathways made of light spread out into the black nothingness of the void in a singular path behind them yet diverted into infinite paths moving forward with no identifiable endpoint. It was so still in this dimension that Rey could hear her own heartbeat.

“What is this?” Rey asked with the wide-eyed wonderment of a child as she spun on a heel to take in as much as she could.

“This is the Vergence Scatter,” Ahsoka explained. “These are pathways to everything that ever happened in the past as well as every possibility that ever could occur in the future.”

The pathways forward shifted and rerouted every few seconds. One moment a path led in one direction only to have it divert down numerous paths in different directions a moment later.

“Time is constantly in motion,” Ahsoka said. “Every event in the future is predicated on what happens in the moments and eons before it.”

Ahsoka let Rey wander a bit ahead, peering into shimmering portals each time she stopped. In one window she saw an older version of herself, her hair nearly white, her skin leathery and worn after a lifetime of work under Tatooine’s twin suns. She was alone in her dwelling. A rusty BB unit rested quietly in the corner as the older Rey let her hair down and fell asleep on the same tattered bed roll she had been using for the past two years. This Rey had stagnated and had never left the self-imposed prison she created for herself in the desert.

Disgusted, Rey backed up and followed another path to a portal. She stopped in front of another opening to see a different possibility in the future. Her friends—Finn and Poe ran through a stone temple, frantic as if they were running for their lives. She could feel their fear even from the portal. Poe gripped a blaster and fired at an unseen opponent. When he stepped forward, she could see that Finn was bleeding from his flank. He was wounded and slowly hemorrhaging to death. Poe aimed and fired, but something deflected the blaster bolt. Rey gasped in horror, and her hand flew to her mouth as she saw what her friends were trying to escape. She stepped out of the shadows with two crimson plasma blades the color of blood that blazed side by side. She was cloaked in black. Her pale hand grasping the blades flicked once, and the twin lightsabers came together to form a double-edged saber staff. The light caught the features of the woman’s gaunt face. Her own visage—the same one she had seen in a vision years ago—hunted down her friends. Her doppelganger moved quickly, spinning once and raining fury down on the two men. They screamed in pain as she mowed them down, about to deliver the final and killing blows.

Rey tripped over her own feet and fell over as she tried to escape the horror. Ahsoka was at her side, already extending a hand to help her up before she could even catch her breath.

“These futures aren’t hard and fast,” she reassured. “They are only possibilities, dependent on decisions you have yet to make.”

Rey pulled herself to a stand. Her heart still had not slowed from its jackhammer pulse and her head still swam as she tried to process what she had seen. “Both of those futures were horrible!”

Neither option seemed to phase Ahsoka in the least. “Come,” she urged, guiding Rey away from what she had seen and toward a third portal, beginning to show its contents. “Let’s look at a different possibility.”

This one was much more peaceful than the other two futures. A small girl with inky dark hair sat in the center of the homestead’s courtyard. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue. Between her legs sat a potted plant that she was scooping earth into and gently patting it into place. The succulent was clearly something that had grown in the desert. The tips of its stems were covered in brilliant purple blossoms. And then she saw him. Ben—he was alive and older than when he’d died—stepped out of the shed with a watering can in his hand and was dressed in a desert dweller’s garb. A patchy beard grew on his chin. His hair was longer and streaked with a little grey, pulled back into a messy knot at the back of his head. “Let’s give your flowers a drink, sunshine,” he said to the little girl.

The tiny girl held up the pot while Ben poured a generous amount of water into it. “Daddy, do you think Mamma will like her present?” she asked him.

He planted a kiss to the top of the child’s head, “She will love it.”

His daughter squealed with delight as she saw her mother step out of the house. “What are you two up to?” her own voice called out as an older version of herself entered the courtyard.

The little girl pushed herself to a stand and brushed the earth off her tunic. She grabbed the pot and extended it before giggling, “Surprise, Mamma!”

Rey stepped back and closed her eyes. This one was the most painful, not because it was a horrifying future that lay ahead for her. It hurt because it was a possibility she wanted but could not have.

When she opened her eyes, silent tears were coursing down her cheeks. “Why did you show me that if I can’t have it?” she whispered to Ahsoka.

“The Vergence Scatter doesn’t show things that cannot occur,” Ahsoka explained. “Only possibilities that can.”

“How is that possible?” Rey asked. “Ben is dead.”

“Because the Vergence Scatter doesn’t just offer infinite options to the future. It also provides opportunities to change the future by returning to the past,” she said, hooking her arm with Rey’s and leading her back to where they entered and to the single path that stretched in the other direction.

“This is the past,” Ahsoka said, “There are infinite portals of every event that has ever occurred.”

Rey peered into the portals as she wandered the timeline. Everything from the mundane to galaxy-changing events flashed before her. “While these points are set in time, each portal allows a Traveler to enter that moment and potentially alter the future that has not yet occurred,” Ahsoka explained.

Rey paused and watched a memory of Palpatine rising to power. He had been merely a senator from Naboo who saw opportunities and capitalized on them for his own gain. “In theory, I could go back in time and kill him before he could become Emperor?” Rey asked.

Ahsoka nodded. “That is one possibility,” she said. Instead of showing Rey another memory of the past, she used the Force to create the image of a pool of water that hovered between them. Its surface was still as glass. “But each time we interact with the past, there will be a ripple effect.”

As she said that, a droplet of water dripped into the ethereal pool sending waves out in concentric circles, one after another until the pool water was nothing but circular waves.

“If you were to go back in the time stream and kill him, you would create a paradox that would ripple down for generations,” Ahsoka continued. “Chances are Ben would never exist in that reality. After all, his grandfather was created by the Force to bring balance to what the Emperor destroyed. No Palpatine means the Force would not need to create the Skywalkers to face him.”

She dropped a second droplet into the same spot. The concentric circles were unmoved. She then created a second droplet that fell not that far from the first. The circles in the water were intercepted by the new waves, and an entirely new pattern emerged on the surface.

“Sheev Palpatine was also your grandfather,” she continued. “If you were to erase him from history, you yourself would never be born, and you would vanish from that timeline forever.”

Ahsoka erased the waves in the water before returning to the single droplet in the center. For a third time, the circular waves radiated across the image of the pool.

“If a Traveler decides to make an intervention, they need to be cognizant of the ripple effect,” she explained. “It is possible to change the course of an event, but one is most successful if that interaction with the past creates the least number of ripples that will resonate in the future.”

This time Ahsoka placed the water droplet far from the center of the other set of waves. This time, instead of placing beside the original droplet, she deposited it at the edge of the pool. The circular waves were allowed to continue their path to the edge and were intersected here the lip of the pool. The change in pattern was minimal.

Rey wiped away the image of the pool and headed down the path in search of moments in Ben’s life. She briefly paused at the memory of a young boy crying in the  _ Falcon’s _ crew quarters. There was no mistaking the distinct ears that peeked through dark hair. It was Ben on the way to start his new life as a Padawan. His eyes were red and puffy as he begged his parents to let him go home. His tiny body shook with anguish as he was wracked with sobs. Her heart broke for the diminutive version of the man she knew. 

It would be the last time the child she saw would see his parents for years.

But her heart told her she’d ventured back too far in his past. The ripples would be altered too much if she intervened with that point of time.

She needed to find a different moment in his life that was closer to the present. This time she stopped at a portal where Ben was dressed from head to toe in black. He’d already adopted his new name in this reality. She was staring at a younger Kylo Ren and not the Ben Solo she had come to love. In this moment he lay sprawled on the ground, blood pouring from his mouth where his master had struck him. He cowered on the floor as he scrambled to his knees. As Snoke drew close, the humanoid stooped to whisper in his apprentice’s ear. “It pains me to correct you, my boy,” the monster crooned. “Pray that this lesson will stick, unlike the previous ones.”

“Thank you, Master,” he trembled in response, grateful for the agony his teacher inflicted.

As much as Rey wanted to jump into that reality and pull him into the World Between Worlds to stop the cycle of abuse that he had endured for years, she knew this too was not the right moment.

Moving on, she closed her eyes and reached out into their fractured bond for a sign that would point her in the right direction. It still ached like a gaping wound that festered, yet never healed. Something, perhaps a whisper through the Force, told her to stop walking. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She saw a moment of time nearly three years in the past, half of a conversation she had with him when they were first learning about their Force bond. She had caught him off guard and in the middle of changing for bed. His shirt was already off, and she had been surprised by his lack of modesty.

“Let the past die,” he asserted with absolute confidence as he took a step closer. “Kill it if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you’re meant to be.”

“Let the past die,” Rey repeated as she turned his words over in her mind. At the time, he had uttered the challenge as nothing more than a means to woo her to the dark side of the Force. He had wanted her to join him and become his dark queen at the expense of her own morals and values.

“What are you thinking, Rey?” Ahsoka asked, a little smirk turned her lips up in a smile.

Rey didn’t wait for Ahsoka when she broke out in a sprint and headed even closer to the present. “Ben had it all wrong!” she explained, so very close to making a breakthrough in her search. She waited for Ahsoka to catch up before she continued. “He wanted to kill the painful parts of his past to control the trajectory of his future. But that didn’t work for him. It only made things worse!”

“Go on,” Ahsoka said as if she were a school teacher wanting a pupil to show her math on a complicated problem.

Rey waved her hand against the darkened portal. She was privy to a reality that very much had occurred, but one that she had never seen before. After all, it occurred when she was briefly dead.

In front of her, an injured Ben lay on his back, blood gathering at the corner of his mouth. His leg jutted out at an unnatural angle. He was barely conscious as he groaned in pain.

“I’m afraid this point in time is too late, Rey,” Ahsoka said. She clearly didn’t agree with Rey’s selection. “This is why Ben does not make it. You see, he’s already dying. He is bleeding to death from the inside. By the time he reaches you up above, he will not have enough of his …”

“...life force to save me and make it out alive!” Rey interrupted. “This is the jump point. I know I’m right. I can feel it.”

“What you’re proposing is a one-way trip,” Ahsoka warned as they both watched Ben cough and slowly rouse from unconsciousness on the other side of the portal. “If you do what I think you’re about to do, you will die.”

“Then it is absolutely the jump point,” Rey said, desperate to explain her reasoning. “Ben once told me to let the past die to be who you were meant to be. It’s the other way around. To save him, I need to erase the future, because he will never be part of the reality I came from. I don’t need to alter my timeline. I need to fix his!”

“Rey, you’re not understanding me,” Ahsoka admonished. “There will be no reality for you because you will be dead.”

“No, I won’t!” she answered. Pointing above Ben’s still form to the cathedral above, she explained. “I am still up there.”

“You’re dead up there.”

“This is the only point where making an intervention would only affect him and me, no one else. Palpatine is already dead. What happens down here will not change the course of the battle in the sky above. If I can help Ben here, the only thing that changes would be the fact that he lives!”

Ahsoka stared at her for several moments. “If this goes wrong, there’s a chance you both will wind up dead and stay dead,” she said. “What you’re about to do may not be enough to save him. He could also fall on his way up, and where would you both be?”

“I won’t know if I don’t try,” Rey said. There were so many variables to consider. Most would likely lead to their doom, but she didn’t care. A one in a billion chance was still better than no chance at all. “Because the way I see things,” she continued, “I can’t live in a future where he does not.”

Ahsoka’s skepticism evaporated. She waved the portal open, and the distance between Rey and Ben’s still form was now only a few footsteps away.

“I think you’re ready to become unstuck in time,” Ahsoka said, offering Rey her blessing. “If this works, we will meet again some day, and I will be looking forward to meeting my former master’s grandson.”

Rey’s jaw dropped with shock. “You were Vader’s apprentice?”

With a gentle shake of the head and a soft smile, Ahsoka clarified, “No, I was Anakin’s. I couldn’t help him when he needed me most, but I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to help his only grandchild.”

Rey was floored by the woman’s kindness and generosity. Not knowing how to respond, she fiercely hugged the Togruta as she dug deep to find the resolve she would need to follow through with her plan. It was terrifying as she understood the finality of it all.

“I don’t know how to thank you for this,” Rey whispered into Ahsoka’s cloak. With a deep breath she stepped toward the portal.

“What’s stopping you?” Ahsoka asked. “He’s waiting for you.”

Rey exited the World Between Worlds, and the portal started to close behind her. There was no turning back now. As she turned her attention to Ben, she heard Ahsoka’s voice call out. It was the tiniest ghost of a whisper, but the words were loud and clear.

_ The Force will be with you. Always. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, your kudos and comments warm the soul. Would love your thoughts on this brief chapter. Things will start to speed up after this one!
> 
> A great explanation for Vergence Scatter as a mode for Time Travel is outlined nicely in the Star Wars Rebels episode “The World Between Worlds” (Season 4, Episode 13.)


	3. Exegol and Ajan Kloss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love."  
> \--Rose Tico
> 
> ___________
> 
> "Passion, it lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it speaks to us, guides us--some to despair, others to murder, and others to madness. Passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
> 
> \--Angelus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for Chapter three: in- canon character death. But since this is a Fix-It, NOTHING STICKS!
> 
> Longer chapter, and things pick up and Rey decides to get her boy back! Buckle up, we are officially fixing what JJ Abrams destroyed!

Ben slowly opened his eyes, and his whole world was nothing but pain. He had no clue how he survived the fall after Palpatine hurled him into the chasm. He could only manage tiny, ragged breaths. He was certain he had broken more than a few ribs. When he tried to sit, something ground in his pelvis, something unnatural where bones weren’t meant to shift. The pain was white hot, and all he could do was cry out into the void around him.

A cough bubbled forth from his chest, bringing with it the metallic taste of blood. His head swam, and nausea rose up from the pit of his stomach. He was going to die like every other milestone he had marked in his miserable life—alone.

He failed Rey. When she passed him his grandfather’s lightsaber through their bond, he silently pledged his loyalty to her, promising to fight by her side until his last dying breath. Yet she was still up there facing that monster alone. He was weak and useless, just like his master told him so many times that he lost count. Rey would die because she put her faith in a scared child that hid behind a mask.

His head lolled back against the cold stone surface. His body was shattered, and there was no saving him now. The Skywalker line ended here. Ben’s eyes slid shut, and he waited for death to wrap him in its cold embrace. The Life After didn’t welcome creatures like him. There was no place for monsters in the Force’s eternal flow. He waited for death to claim him and the oblivion that waited in that empty darkness.

His heart began to stutter and slow. The world around him felt colder. But somewhere not all that far away, he heard a voice.

“Ben,” it called. It was muffled as if he was hearing it from below the surface of the water. “Ben, please wake up!”

Someone was gently shaking his shoulder, desperately trying to rouse him to consciousness. Slowly he opened his eyes. She was there kneeling beside him. He was too dazed to realize that Rey’s hair hung down in a braid. Nor did it register with him that she was wearing an entirely different set of clothes. It didn’t matter. His Rey was there beside him.

“We don’t have much time,” she frantically explained. “I need you to do something, but I have to help you first.”

He coughed again, and blood bubbled up to his mouth. Ben was tired, so very tired. All he wanted to do was close his eyes again. How could he help her? He didn’t have the energy to even keep his eyes open.

She gathered one of his hands in hers. Then she placed her other hand over his failing heart. Her eyes closed, and she drew in a long, deep breath. As she exhaled, a warmth poured from her and filled his chest. Bit by bit, the pain started to subside. In its stead was a sense of calm that wrapped around him like a soft blanket. His breathing eased and became less labored. His head stopped pounding.

Rey was once again sharing her life force with him, just as she had on Kef Bir. With each rise and fall of her chest, more of that life-sustaining energy poured into him, filling him to the brim until his bones knit back together, his innards stopped hemorrhaging, and all pain slipped away.

He pushed himself up slowly until he was sitting next to Rey. She had healed him. It was a gift he hoped he would someday be able to repay in some capacity.

“Ben!” she said with a smile.

He cupped her cheek. It was ice cold. Rey had given too much, and now it was her life force that was almost gone. She had poured every ounce of it into him.

“Rey, no!” he cried, his eyes swam with unshed tears. He didn’t deserve her life. She was the one that was supposed to live. No one cared if he lived or died. But Rey, she was something special.

She wiped the blood from his lip with the pad of her thumb. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice shaking just a bit. She wasn’t welcoming him home. Rey was saying goodbye. “I know what I’m doing.”

Ben didn’t know how long they had, and he tried desperately to commit every part of her face—her dimples, her freckles, her smile—to memory.

Her finger traced the rim of his ear. Her touch was feather light. “I need you to go up there,” she instructed. “It will make sense when you get there, but you need to climb back up.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?” he said, but he already knew the answer. Only one of them would be climbing out of the chasm.

“No,” she answered, stroking his sweaty hair. “My journey ends here, but yours is just beginning.”

“But I need you,” he pleaded.

Her smile was sad yet full of love. “No, you don’t,” she said with absolute certainty. “Now there’s one more thing I need you to do before you start climbing.”

“Anything,” he whispered back.

“I need you to close your eyes and do what I tell you,” she said.

Ben licked his cracked lips and nodded. He slid his eyes shut just as she had instructed and waited for further direction.

“You will forget I was ever down here,” she said, her voice assertive yet distant. It was too late to resist the Force’s will as Rey eased gently into his mind and removed all memories of their interaction in the chasm. They dissipated into the Force, vanishing forever.

He felt something that reminded him of a kiss ghost his lips. Ben kept his eyes shut for a few moments longer, unaware of how Rey took her last breath. He didn’t see her as she faded into nothingness. The last whispers of her life force flowed into him, leaving nothing but her clothing behind. He didn’t sense how the future she came from vanished from the Force’s flow or how the stiff gust of wind that blew deep into the abyss swept her garments away.

“I will forget you were ever here,” he softly said as he opened his eyes.

o.o.o.o

Ben sat there for several moments. He must have hit his head on the way down. It was the only explanation for how he remembered very little after Palpatine lifted him into the air and flung him into the pit. How he managed to land on the outcropping with few injuries boggled his mind.

Fate must have landed him on the ledge without tumbling to the bottom of the abyss. Or maybe he had subconsciously stopped his own freefall. A lesson with his Master a decade ago proved he could do it.

His body would have shattered on impact if he tumbled to the pit’s full depth. Looking up, he peered to the top of the jagged opening. It was only about fifty meters up. Rey was still up there, alone with that monster. He reached out with the Force to find her. But her signature was weak, like a candle flame struggling to stay alight in the middle of a hurricane.

She needed him, that much was certain, and Ben started his ascent to the surface. Hand over hand, step over step. He grabbed the rock and pushed himself up by his legs, one meter or so at time. The rock was sharp in places and dug into his hands. He ignored how his thighs started to burn by the time he was half-way to the top.

He reached out to grab the next small outcropping on the wall when his foot slipped.

“Kriff!” he swore as he started to fall, his hands scrambling to grab anything to stop him from free falling to his death.

Ben wasn’t sure if it was the Force, his innate abilities, or just plain luck as his hand grabbed a small heel of rock as he slid down the façade. He closed his eyes and focused on that tiny outcropping, not much bigger than his own palm and clutched it with his fingers. They strained to grip the rock as he slammed back into the side of the abyss. He cried out in pain as his pelvis made contact with a jagged lip. That was going to leave a mark.

“Ow,” he quietly said to no one as he surveyed new routes to the top. A pocket in the rock provided a grip for his other hand. An uneven ledge would be the next place he would push up from his feet.

Slowly but surely each grip brought him closer to the opening. His fingers bled, his knuckles were raw, and every muscle in his body cried out for respite by the time he neared the top. But as he reached the upper lip of the abyss, it wasn’t exhaustion that took his breath away.

He couldn’t find Rey anywhere in the Force. She was gone.

She had to be there. He couldn’t be too late. Ben refused to give up.

He scanned his surroundings desperately. The cathedral was in ruins. The ceiling had collapsed; stones littered the floor in all directions. The Sith devotees were all dead, swept away with the temple’s destruction. Palpatine was gone too, and Ben welcomed his absence in the Force. After thirty years of that monster in his mind, Ben was finally free.

But then he spotted Rey in the center of the chamber. Her crumpled body looked so small and frail in the pale moonlight filtering in through the fractured ceiling. She had not faded into the Force.

He was too late. He failed, after all. Palpatine had won, even in death. He took the one thing Ben loved more than anything in the galaxy, and Ben was alone once again.

His legs were wobbly beneath him, but that didn’t stop him from limping his way toward her still form. His foot caught on the uneven part of the ground, and he stumbled to his knees. He had to get to her. Ignoring his painfully throbbing hip, he pushed himself to a stand and slowly made his way toward her. When he could no longer walk, he crawled the last few meters, dragging himself to where she lay.

_No, no, no, no, no,_ he frantically thought as he reached her. Crouching beside her, he tugged her into his lap. She was feather light, but he still struggled to pull her deadweight to where he could cradle her in his arms.

A gasp escaped his lips. He was not prepared for her face. As he turned her over, Rey’s head lolled back into his waiting hand. She was as limp as a lifeless ragdoll. Her sightless eyes stared back at him, and her skin was already cooling to the touch.

Tears stung his eyes. Ben quickly scanned the chamber. Like a child, he hoped someone would come and help him. He silently prayed to his ancestors, the dead Jedi that came before him, anyone that could help. A silent plea hung wordless on his lips.

_Please._

But just as every other moment of his life, he was utterly alone, and no one came to his assistance. He felt helpless. Worse, he felt useless.

When they didn’t answer, he gathered Rey’s body close and held her tightly against him, offering her silent apologies as he trembled for not getting there on time, for not fighting hard enough, for not going home with her when she begged him a year before. It was his fault she was dead. If he could trade places with her, he gladly would.

But then he remembered the gift she gave him on Kef Bir. She offered him a part of her own life in order to save his worthless one. Ben had never healed anything in his life, and he didn’t know if that type of healing would help bring someone back from the folds of death. But it was the only option he had, and he was willing to try.

He lay her back in his arm so that he could place his other hand on her abdomen. _Calm_ was one the first lessons his uncle had imparted. It was counter to what Snoke taught him, that the Force was fueled by anger and rage. He had to find that calm Luke taught him to seek if this were to work.

Ben closed his eyes and drew in a cleansing breath. He held it for a moment before slowly exhaling. He repeated the process several times before turning his attention to the life force within himself. He visualized it flowing from his own heart, down his arm, through his hand, and into Rey. He imagined gathering his own energy with each breath he drew in and transferring it into her still form each time he exhaled. For the first time in his life, he found the peace that had eluded him for so long.

He meditated just as his uncle taught him. With each breath he took, he prayed he was one step closer to bringing her back from oblivion.

_In. Out_.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when her hand covered his. It was warm. Rey was alive! He snapped his eyes open as she shifted in his lap and sat up. Despite the dirt that smeared across her face or the blood that clotted high on her head, she never looked more beautiful. Stunned speechless, all he could do was sit there as she gazed at him with wonder.

“Ben,” she whispered, gifting him with a bright smile.

Her hand was soft as she gently caressed the side of his face, grazing his ear that peeked out from its hiding place underneath his filthy hair. No one had ever looked at him like that before—with gratitude, but more importantly, with love.

Rey’s gaze darted from his eyes to his mouth. Before he could react, she grabbed the side of his face and dove in for a kiss. His hand instinctively reached for the back of her neck and drew her closer. At first her lips merely grazed his, soft and warm. But then she pressed forward. Their teeth clacked together, her mouth hungry for more. The fine little baby hairs at the nape of her neck wound around his fingers.

Her hand combed into his hair as she continued to kiss him. She was so close he could feel her heart hammer away in her chest. When she finally pulled back, Ben felt giddy and drunk. He’d only kissed one other person in his life, but this felt so much different. It felt like home.

Her fingers ghosted across the surface of his cheek, and he responded with the tiniest huff of a laugh. It had been a lifetime ago when he’d last smiled, but he could not stop the toothy grin spread across his features. They did it. They destroyed the shadow that followed him his entire life.

Somewhere in the skies above, the Order and the Resistance were likely battling for supremacy. None of the mattered. Only Rey. In that moment, she was his entire universe.

He wanted to kiss her again and drown in her embrace, but his vision started to go black. He didn’t hear her whisper his name or how her voice filled with concern. He didn’t feel his eyes roll back in his head as he went limp and collapsed backward, nor did he feel her hand lace with his, the other cradling his neck to break his fall.

Ben wasn’t sure how long he’d lain there. It couldn’t have been all that long. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Rey’s concerned face staring down at him. Her hand was still entwined with his.

She helped him sit up. He put up no resistance as she drew him into a crushing hug. “You could’ve died draining out your life force,” she added. There was no mistaking the concern.

“I’ll remember that for next time,” he tried to joke in return.

She held him for several long moments. When she pulled away, tears were in her eyes. No one had ever looked at him that way before. He had become so accustomed to anger and scorn. What Rey had to offer was so much better.

Acceptance.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t feel right,” he admitted. It was an understatement. He didn’t have the energy to move, and he knew that when he did, it would be slow and labored. It felt like his limbs were filled with lead, and it took everything in his being to keep his eyes open. The Force buzzed around him, but it felt like it was always just a fingertip away. Ben didn’t have the strength to tap into it. Even his thoughts felt like they were moving in slow motion.

A large hunk of stone broke free from the vaulted ceiling, crashing down and scattering dust in all directions. Rey flinched and instinctively tried to shield him with her slight form.

She pushed herself to stand. Her once white outfit was now dingy and grey like the environs that surrounded them. “You can rest in a bit,” she said, “but it’s not safe here. We have to go home.”

“I don’t have a home,” he answered. He was now a pariah on both sides. By throwing his lot in with Rey, he knew he would be hunted by his own forces if they knew he were still alive. And if he went home with her, it would be a short walk to a brig, then a summary execution. He had nowhere to go.

“You have one with me,” she insisted as she reached out for him. “Take my hand, Ben. We’re going home together.”

Grasping her hand, he hauled himself up. Her arm was around his waist before he could stumble, and she draped his arm around her shoulders for more support. Slowly, they limped their way out of the ruins. The guards were all dead; their bodies were strewn in the chamber as well as the corridor. They were the battle’s only survivors.

He leaned into her and caught his breath during the slow ride to the surface. The massive hoverlift groaned as they put distance between themselves and the compound’s underbelly. They paused for only a few minutes to rest before traversing the rest of the way toward their ships. He’d never been so thankful to realize the raised lift connected them to the outside, because he knew he didn’t have the strength to leap the chasm a second time.

Up above, the battle’s last vestiges waged on. A Star Destroyer’s burning hull careened toward the horizon before exploding on impact.

Through the mists, he spotted the aged TIE he had flown from Kef Bir. Beside it sat an even more decrepit X-Wing. Their options to fly were limited. Neither looked all that spaceworthy. It was nothing short of a miracle that neither of them broke apart in hyperspace.

“Where’s the _Silencer_?” he asked.

“What’s that?” she replied.

“My ship that you stole.”

“It’s gone,” was all she answered. In another life, he would’ve been furious. He loved that fighter and how he could push the limits of the craft like it was an extension of his own body. But now, he couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Do you want me to follow you out?” he offered.

“You’re in no condition to fly,” she answered. “We’re leaving in the same ship.”

Ben surveyed both fighters. He could barely fit into an X-Wing by himself. He had no idea how they both would cram into it.

“Is your TIE a one or two-seater?” she said as if she could read his mind.

“It’s a two-seat bomber,” he answered. “It’s ancient, but it’s spaceworthy.”

“Good,” she noted. “It should have no problems supporting two lifeforms.”

Ben located the control panel on the wing. He deployed the ladder, which unfolded from a panel in the hull.. The decorum ingrained in him, a lasting gift from his mother, reminded him to wait and allow for her to ascend the ladder first.

“You first,” she insisted. “I’ll follow behind in case you need help.”

“I’m not an invalid,” he protested even though his aching body said otherwise.

“I know you’re not,” she explained. “But healing takes its toll. I’m sure you’ll feel better in a few days. But until then, let me help you, you stubborn nerf herder.”

There was no sense arguing with her. Even at his strongest, he had never won a battle with her, and he was pretty certain his losing streak would continue if he challenged her now. He swallowed his pride, conceded defeat, and started the climb up to the cockpit. Rey was only a few rungs below. As he opened the hatch and started to climb into the pilot’s seat, she grabbed his ankle.

“Fat chance, flyboy,” she said. “You’re riding shotgun on this flight.”

Not wanting to argue with her, he swung his legs to the other side of the cockpit and slid into the bomber’s seat. He strapped himself in while Rey situated herself to his back in the pilot’s position.

“Have you ever flown a TIE before?” he asked before correcting himself. “Wait, that’s right. You boosted mine and left me stranded.”

She reached for her own safety straps and belted herself in place before she started up the ignition sequence. The fighter groaned to life. “Watch it, or I’ll strand you again,” she joked over her shoulder.

Once the hatch sealed shut, Ben closed his eyes. He could barely keep them open.

“Don’t get cocky, hotshot,” he bantered back to her. “This bird handles a lot rougher than modern TIEs. The motivator is finicky, and takeoff may feel a little bumpy.”

The fighter screamed to life as she engaged the accelerator, and they quickly ascended to the stratosphere. “Yeah,” she said as she confidently guided the ship upward. “I think I’ve got the hang of it.”

Ben’s ears popped as they exited atmo and entered the darkness of space. The First Order remnants were on the run and retreating. The Resistance had won the battle. Those not in pursuit were jumping into hyperspace all around them.

They’d made it. Somehow the two of them survived the battle and were headed to safety. He could hear Rey entering coordinates into the navicomputer. His stomach dropped. It was that telltale sign that they had accelerated to lightspeed and had hopped into a hyperspace lane. The turbulence seemingly vanished, and the stars smeared out into infinite smudges of light. There was something calming about hyperspace’s stillness.

He leaned his head back until it rested on the back of his seat. Sleep called to him. Ben could hear Rey rummaging through something.

“You still with me?” she called to him.

“I’m here,” he answered back.

“Take this,” she said as she shoved a foil survival blanket over her shoulder. It was only a millimeter or two thick, but it was an efficient way to trap heat. Hyperspace had its way of always feeling unnaturally cold, and he didn’t put up an argument when she offered him the blanket. He muttered a quiet thanks and unfolded the foil sheet before covering his body with it.

Rey reached behind her and found his wrist. He quickly twined his fingers with hers. “Try to sleep, Ben,” she said. He squeezed her hand to let her know he heard her. “I’ll wake you before we land.”

He didn’t need much nudging. Slumber’s dark folds called to him. His eyes grew heavy, and his breathing evened out. The sound of the hyperdrive engine faded in the distance, and he drifted off to sleep. Rey was there keeping watch. It was safe to finally let his guard down and rest.

o.o.o.o

Rey’s eyes snapped open when the alarm chirped, notifying her that they would be exiting hyperspace in the next few moments. Somewhere along their journey home, she too had dozed off. She yawned and tried to stretch within the cramped confines of the TIE fighter’s cockpit. Behind her, Ben quietly still snored away. There was no need to wake him until they were closer to landing.

A quick survey of the navicomputer, and she double-checked her coordinates. If nothing went wrong with her calculations, they would be dropping into space near Ajan Kloss. With all the ships returning from battle, she hoped she wouldn’t have to dodge too many crafts using the same jump coordinates.

_Here goes nothing_ , she thought to herself as she flipped off the hyperdrive condenser and activated the sublight stabilizers. The TIE’s transition to space was not as smooth as more modern fighters. The ship abruptly lurched out of the hyperspace lane, and she choked back a wave of nausea as her body transitioned to the real space.

The hop had woken Ben from his sleep, and he made a small groan as he roused. Rey could hear the rustle from the foil blanket as he shifted in his seat.

“Where are we?” a drowsy voice called from behind her.

“Ajan Kloss,” she answered. “We’re almost there.”

But as soon as they rounded the gas giant Ajara and the jungle moon came into view, they were intercepted by a half dozen Resistance fighters.

“Unidentified TIE,” a stern voice crackled through the universal comm channel. “You are in Resistance space. Disarm your proton guns.”

In her haste to put lightyears between them and Exegol, she had forgotten to load her Resistance access code. Of course, they were scrambling to intercept them. The Resistance had no clue who was on board. She was flying an enemy ship.

“Repeat, you are in Resistance space,” the voice continued. “You will comply with these orders or you will be disintegrated.”

Rey quickly grabbed the headset she had hung on the console and wrapped it over her head. She swung the microphone into position in front of her mouth and answered.

“Hold your fire,” she frantically answered. “We’re friendlies. My access code is Trill-Besh-Esk-Two-Five-Seven-Nine. Repeat, my access code is Trill-Besh-Esk-Two-Five-Seven-Nine!”

The silence that followed was deafening. 

“Great,” Ben grumbled. “We made it this far only to get blown to bits.”

“You’re not helping matters,” she hissed back at him as she covered her microphone receiver with her fist.

“Rey, is that you?” a second voice crackled over the comm.

“Jess!” Rey replied as she recognized her friend’s voice. “Yes, it’s me. Don’t shoot!”

“We thought we lost you!” Jessika Pava answered back. “Whose ship are you flying?”

“Kylo Ren’s,” Rey stated. It would be one of the few truths she would offer her friends. “My ship wouldn’t fly, so I boosted his.”

“Where’s Ren?”

What was she going to tell the Resistance? He was seated right behind her. Ben was likely the most wanted person in the entire galaxy, a man without home, a monster hated by all. Rey took a deep breath and turned over her options to answer that simple question. Whatever she would say would have resounding effects moving forward.

“Ren is dead.”

With those three words, Rey closed the final chapter on Kylo Ren’s life. The creature in a mask was no more, another casualty of the battle of Exegol. The boogeyman that the Resistance feared and hated was gone. His body was lost in the jagged maw that opened in the Sith cathedral’s floor. They fought together side by side to bring Palpatine down. He was an ally at the end, who became another casualty in the war against the First Order. That would be the tale she would tell her friends, and they would believe every bit of it.

Kylo Ren had to die so that Ben Solo could live.

“Rey, you’re cleared to land,” Jess said over the comm. “Head over the east clearing. There should be space for you there.”

“Copy that, Jess,” Rey answered. “See you on the ground.”

She flipped off the comm and prepared to drop into atmo. The lush greenery came into view as she eased the TIE toward the Resistance base. The intercept team remained in orbit while she steered their way through the thick cloud cover. The makeshift traffic control tower of Mission Command came into view, perched above the tallest trees that hid the series of grottos housing the hidden base. The north field was already filled with civilian and Resistance transports alike. General Calrissian must have been able to rally support for the final push after all.

Down below, she spotted the _Falcon_. It was nearly a kilometer from where she was planning to land in the eastern clearing. Scores of denizens crowded that makeshift tarmac, hugging and cheering as they celebrated their hard-won victory over the Sith and the First Order.

“They’re going to shoot me on sight,” Ben remarked. He was right. There were too many people. He’d be spotted immediately.

“Relax, I have a plan,” she said trying to calm his nerves.

She swung the TIE toward the eastern clearing and came in for a landing on the far end, which had not yet filled with ships. It would buy them some time and allow Ben to hide a little longer.

As their ship touched down, Rey quickly unbuckled and opened the hatch. A gust of humid air replaced the stale, recycled air in the cockpit. It smelled lush and green. “I need you to stay here,” she instructed.

“Where are you going?” he asked, grabbing her wrist to keep her from exiting the cockpit.

“I need to let them know what happened on Exegol,” she explained. “Leadership needs to know Palpatine is dead and that you helped me defeat him.”

“You’re lying to your friends, Rey,” he said.

She could sense his unease with the subterfuge, but it wasn’t up for debate. She owed her friends the intel. They didn’t need to know the former Supreme Leader hitched a ride back with her. Ben’s safety was in the forefront of her mind.

“That’s my choice to make,” she asserted as he released her hand. “Just stay here until more clear out. I want to get you on board the _Falcon_ once the crowd settles.”

“Be careful,” he warned.

“Behave,” she answered. “Just stay out of sight.”

As she exited the TIE, she closed the hatch behind her. The cockpit would remain cool as long as the climate control still worked. Hopefully the Imperial craft wouldn’t draw too much attention among the other ragtag fighters that were landing, she thought to herself as she descended the ladder.

Rey could see the _Falcon_ in the distance. She was certain she would find at least one of her friends there. The sooner she debriefed them, the sooner she could retrieve Ben and hide him away. She was so tired even her hair felt like it hurt where it met her scalp. She didn’t know what she wanted most: a hydro, some food, or a long night’s sleep. It took everything in her just to put one foot in front of the other. Slowly, she staggered her way toward the crowd.

“Rey!” she heard in the distance. It had to be Rose. She would recognize her friend’s voice anywhere. “Rey!”

She turned as Rose ran toward her. It felt so good to know she had survived the battle. Rey didn’t have the energy to head Rose’s way and waited for her friend to reach her instead.

“You’re alive!” Rose exclaimed and pulled her into a crushing hug. 

“I’m okay,” was all she could reply. She scanned the crowd over Rose’s shoulder and added, “Did the boys make it home?”

Rose nodded. “Finn got back a little while ago,” she explained, “Poe landed earlier. He’s a little banged up, but he’s going to be okay!”

“Thank the Maker,” Rey replied.

She needed to make an appearance with her friends to let them know she was okay and to deliver her intel. But as she hugged her friend, she finalized her plan to move Ben from the _Falcon_. Rey pulled back and looked her friend in the eyes. Reaching out with the Force, she knew she could trust Rose.

“I need a favor,” Rey asked, throwing caution to the wind.

“Sure,” Rose answered with a smile.

“Well, this is a big something,” Rey replied, pausing to figure out just how she was going to explain her treasonous request. “I didn’t come back from Exegol alone. When the crowd dies down, I need you to help me move someone from the TIE to the _Falcon,_ and nobody can know about it _._ ”

Rose crossed her arms. That never meant anything good. “Who’s on board, Rey?”

Rey licked her lips. Her mouth suddenly felt like it was filled with cotton wool. She wiped her sweaty palms on her filthy leggings and looked around for potential eavesdroppers.

“General Organa's son, Ben Solo,” she muttered.

“Where has he been?” Rose asked. “I thought he died years ago.”

Rey took a deep breath. There was no way to sugar coat it, but she owed Rose the truth. 

“He was Kylo Ren.”

“Kriff, Rey!” Rose shrieked before lowering her voice. “You can’t bring the Supreme Leader here unless you’re planning on throwing him in the brig. Poe’s in charge now …”

“I know,” Rey interrupted. He was General Organa’s second in command and the natural successor. “I felt the General die.”

“Then you know that Poe will call for a firing squad before sundown.”

Rey swallowed against an empty throat. She held Ben’s life in her palm, and she risked everything confiding in one of her closest friends. “But it’s what the General would have wanted,” she pleaded. “She wanted her son to come home.”

“But we’re still at war!”

“He helped me defeat Palpatine,” Rey responded.

A ground transport rumbled past with a trio of injured pilots headed toward the medbay. Rose waited for them to pass before continuing. “Poe won’t care.”

“Then I really need your help,” Rey added. “I know no one will believe me, but he’s changed, Rose. He saved my life. There’s so much light in him. When he fought by my side, I knew he was going to come home. Please, Rose. It was the general’s last wish.”

“You know we’ll both end up in the brig if we get caught, right?” She was always a stickler for the rules. But she was also the one who had a heart of kyber—fierce and strong, warm and compassionate. “Why does he mean so much to you?”

Rose always had a way of getting down to the root of the matter. Rey was prepared to lie to the Resistance about Ben, but with Rose she had to be completely honest if they had a chance of making it out of there together and alive.

“The Force connected us,” she started. There was no easy way to explain what it meant to be part of a dyad. She herself was only beginning to understand it. “It’s like he’s the other part of my soul.”

Rose placed her hand on Rey’s forearm and studied her for several moments. Rey saw no judgement, only a will to understand the situation. A small smile spread across her friend’s features. “Do you love him?”

A slight nod and Rey replied, “With all my heart.”

“But do you trust him?” Rose asked.

“With my life.”

Rose took one more scan across the clearing to make sure no one was listening in. “I’ll help you,” she said with a nod. “I’ll wait until closer to sunset when people start heading into the mess. I can come up with a good reason to check out the TIE, and I’ll move Ben then. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Rey wrapped Rose into a second hug. This was going to work after all!

“Thank you,” she cried, trying her best to hold tears back.

Rose smoothed Rey’s hair back as they held each other. “You better go find the boys,” she whispered. “I know they’ve been dying to hear from you.”

They held each other for a few moments before Rey ambled down the path toward the crowd. She turned back one last time and mouthed the words _Thank you_ before limping toward the _Falcon._ She spotted them before they saw her. There was no mistaking Poe’s red flight suit, nor did anyone else wear their hair with distinct, small twists like Finn. They were worse for the wear, but they were alive.

Rey was oblivious to the cacophony surrounding her. In the corner of her eye, she spied Chewbacca hugging a pilot. Her closest friends survived the battle. She loved them each dearly, but she was not willing to share her the secret she hid in the TIE with them. Not yet, at least. Maybe someday when time could soften her omission’s rough edges. Maybe then they could forgive her for deceiving them.

But at that moment, it didn’t matter. Their eyes met across the crowd. Poe and Finn spotted her. A lump formed in her throat, and she was overcome with emotion. She struggled her best to hold it together as she limped her way to them. They closed the distance to meet her and wrapped her in a group embrace.

As they both held her, the tears started to flow—tears of thanks that they were united again. But they were mingled with tears of guilt for the secret she kept. She hoped that someday they would understand.

o.o.o.o

Ben woke with a start as cool air flooded the cramped cockpit, and the light that followed hurt his eyes. He squinted up at the open hatch. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and he immediately threw his hands up to surrender to the intruder.

“Don’t shoot,” he pleaded. Whatever Rey had planned obviously fell apart. This was the end of the line. He was cornered, and the Resistance had captured its greatest prize. Too battle-weary to fight his way out, too exhausted to even resist apprehension, Ben hoped this final journey wouldn’t end on the wrong end of a firing squad before he could say goodbye to Rey. At least she had made it home alive. He was ready to accept his fate as he added, “I’m unarmed.”

He braced himself for rough hands that would inevitably yank him out of the TIE and toss him to the ground. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t shatter his leg in the fall. He still wasn’t sure how he managed to escape relatively unscathed after Palpatine hurled him into that jagged cavern with only a few bruises to show for it, only to have some Resistance grunt accomplish what the Sith Lord could not.

A shadow filled the hatchway, but no rifle or blaster fire followed.

“Oh stars,” a woman’s voice filtered into the cockpit with amused bewilderment. “It really is you.”

To his chagrin, there was no execution squad at the ready. The woman was small, and her jet-black hair was pulled back into two small buns that hung low behind her ears. Dressed in jungle fatigues, she appeared to be an officer. A golden pendant dangled from her neck as she peered into the cockpit. She reminded him of other refugees from the Otomak mining system, who proudly displayed images of their homeworld etched into Haysian smelt.

“You can search me,” he said, keeping his hands where his captor could see them. “I don’t have any weapons. Just let me climb out on my own, and then you can cuff me.”

“Will you shut up before you draw attention to us?” she chuckled. A smile spread across the woman’s face. “I’m not taking you in, dummy. Rey asked me to help get you out of here once the coast was clear.”

His face lit up at the mention of Rey. “Where is she?” he asked.

“In a debrief with the generals,” the woman answered. “They wanted her to head over to the medbay after that.”

“She’s okay, isn’t she?” he asked. What if he hadn’t healed her properly? What if he’d done something wrong, and all of her injuries had returned? 

“She’s fine, Ben,” the woman answered. It felt weird hearing someone other than Rey call him by his given name. It made him feel as exposed as if he showed up at a war council meeting completely naked. “It’s just a precaution. She’ll be back as soon as she can.”

He let out a deep breath.

“I’m Rose, by the way,” she said, extending her hand to help him stand. “I’m one of Rey’s friends.”

He cautiously took her hand and answered, “Hello, Rose.”

Ben gingerly pulled himself to a stand and hauled himself out of the cockpit and to the waiting ladder. Everything hurt. His head pounded, his hip throbbed, and his legs felt rubbery.

The sun was lower in the sky than when they had landed, and it cast long shadows from the numerous ships in the clearing. The gathering crowd from earlier had dispersed. After years of living on an arid cruiser in space, he welcomed the jungle’s warmth and humidity. The soil’s loamy richness permeated the air and reminded him of a simpler time in his life.

“Hey,” Rose said, drawing him from his reverie. “You can daydream all you want later. But right now, I need to get you hidden before anyone sees you.”

“Right,” he murmured and slowly made his way down the ladder after her. When he reached the ground, he let out a wince as his knees buckled, and he lost his footing for a moment. It was hard not to flinch as Rose’s arm circled his waist and helped to steady him.

“Whoa there,” she commented. “Do I need to take you to the medbay, too?”

“I’m okay,” he lied, waiting for his head to stop swimming. His stomach rumbled in angry protest. It had been empty for days. He was running on not much more than fumes. “Just give me a second to find my legs.”

Rose patiently waited for him to make the next move, unwilling to let go until he started moving on his own. “You sure you’re okay?” she added.

“Just really tired,” he answered, limping behind her toward the waiting ground transport.

She escorted him to the passenger seat and shifted the pack to the cargo load. “You look more than just tired,” she noted. “You sure you don’t need a medic?”

He knew she didn’t believe him. Kriff, he didn’t believe himself either. After everything he’d been through, it was hard to believe he’d staggered away with just some bumps and bruises. “I’m sure,” he said, unable to hide the fatigue in his voice.

He eased into the seat and took in his surroundings. Aside from a few ground crew working on a smoldering X-Wing at the edge of the clearing, the improvised tarmac was nearly devoid of denizens. In distance he could hear cheering and laughter, no doubt celebrating their resounding victory against the First Order.

Rose started to unfold the blanket she had brought with her before handing it to him. “Cover up with it,” she instructed. “Your head too. We don’t want to take the chance of anyone recognizing you.”

As soon as he hooded himself with the blanket, Rose engaged the ignition and fired up the transport. It was crude, with large, nubby tires that rolled over the rough terrain. His hip ached with every bump they hit on the trail as it rumbled down the path toward a second landing zone.

Ben ducked to avoid the low hanging branches, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a large, waxy leaf from striking him in the face. He was convinced he would have nodded off had he been able to lean against something. Any adrenaline that had kept him moving was all but gone. The sleep he’d managed to get on the TIE was not nearly enough, but he couldn’t afford to doze off just yet. One wrong move, and he’d easily tumble out of the transport. With his luck, he’d need that medic after all. The air was thick with humidity, even as sunset quickly approached, but that didn’t stop him from pulling the blanket tighter around him. It gave him something to focus on to stay awake. He was too tired for small talk, and was thankful Rose was silent for the remainder of their journey.

When the transport came to a stop, Rose jumped out and grabbed the pack from behind her. She gently nudged him, and he finally stopped staring at his feet and took in his surroundings. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Everything lately seemed to lead back to the _Millennium Falcon._

The petty and vindictive part of him was pleased to steal it from Rey on Pasaana. At the time, it felt as smugly satisfying as it had when his Knights stole it from under his old man’s nose and sold it to the Irving Brothers a decade ago. It was also the last thing he’d seen after she left him alone once again on Crait. But now, it seemed to welcome him home. He had no business taking shelter under its shadow, but somehow it felt right. For the first time since he was a child, it felt like his home again as it stood before him with its open ramp.

“Let’s get you inside,” Rose said, gesturing to the entryway with her head.

Ben stepped out of the vehicle and slowly followed her up the ramp. As soon as he entered its cool confines, he was surrounded by his father on all sides. There was no mistaking the distinct tang of fried circuitry and engine grease that was synonymous with the _Falcon._ If he listened close enough, he was convinced he could still hear the echoes of his father and Chewbacca arguing about something.

“Don’t get weird on me, Solo,” she said, trying to get him to move further inside, beyond the view of anyone that may wander by. “Someone will see you if you keep standing there.”

Ben nodded and absently followed her down the corridor. The ship was still a grungy mess, yet managed to look another hundred years older than when he’d last seen her. Somehow, it even managed to acquire a bird’s nest in one of the sharper angles. Rose led him to the lounge, coming to a stop at the weathered Dejarik table where she deposited her pack.

He took in the surroundings for a moment, taking in what changed, and what stayed exactly the same since the last time he traveled in this ship. It was the trip that separated him from his parents forever. He was only ten at the time, but it felt longer than twenty years ago. He’d cried like the child he should have been, instead of acting like the monk he never wanted to be, joining an order that he never wanted to embrace. It was the day when he ceased to have a family to call his own.

He sat on that very bench when Chewie tried his best to comfort him as he spewed how much he hated his parents in that moment and cried himself hoarse.

“Is the Wookiee here?” he asked, not quite able to even say Chewbacca’s name as he deposited the blanket on the bench.

Rey may have erased the scar on his flank from his uncle blasting a hole in his side on Starkiller when she healed him in their last fight, but it still ached like a phantom wound that would never heal. He forgave the Wookiee a long time ago. He’d deserved to be shot, but still wondered why Chewie, who was as accurate as any trained sniper, hadn’t opted to aim for his head.

“Chewie? he’s probably in Central Command with General Calrissian.”

“He’s here too?” Ben asked.

“It’s okay,” Rose reassured. “I’m the only one that knows you’re here. Now that Rey’s back, I doubt they’ll be coming on board. She kind of lives here instead of the barracks.”

No wonder it felt like home. It explained why a ship he’d come to hate felt so comforting.

Rose busied herself by unpacking the rucksack. She handed him a metal water bottle. It felt cool to the touch, as if it had recently been filled with fresh water. “Drink,” she instructed. “I’m sure you’re dehydrated.”

Ben opened the spout and gulped down several mouthfuls before he came up for air. She pulled out a standard ration pack, but didn’t just stop there. Along with it came two pieces of fruit and some bread.

“You must be starving,” she noted. “I know it’s not much, but my sister always said that hunger was the best seasoning.”

“So did my dad.” He smiled back.

It had been eight years since he’d eaten fresh fruit. It seemed decadently more than the bare minimum that soldiers on both sides had been subsiding on. It was hospitality she didn’t have to offer. It felt sacred.

But she didn’t stop there as she also retrieved a drab tunic and matching pants.

“I hope they fit.” She smiled and rambled on. “I mean, if they don’t, I can go get something that does. I figured you’d blend in better if you weren’t dressed in all black. Because, hey, the black just screams Supre…”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” he quietly interrupted as he unfolded the tunic and held it up. He didn’t care what color it was. It was clean, dry and didn’t stink. That’s all that mattered.

“Rey should be back in a little bit,” Rose said. “She wanted you to lay low until she returns. So, why don’t you just hang out here and stay out of view.”

He glanced down the passageway that led to the captain’s quarters before setting the water bottle on the table. “Does the hydro in the ‘fresher still work?”

“I think so,” Rose answered with uncertainty. “Rey is always clean, so maybe.”

She gathered up her pack and started to head toward the exit. “I should probably get back before someone wonders where I am.”

He nodded his acknowledgement.

“Rose?” he said, trying to get her attention before she left. When she turned around to respond, he added, “Thank you.”

She gifted him with another smile. “You’re welcome,” she answered. “Try to get some rest, Ben.”

He watched her depart before he explored the ration pack. Opening its lid, he spied standard sustenance—two ration bars, four energy chews, six powder packs that were, no doubt, premixed hydromeal powder, and something else that didn’t belong.

He picked up the tiny square wrapped in blue foil. Ben recognized it immediately, even though he hadn’t seen one since he was a child. Rose had left him a tiny square of chocolate, and from the looks of it, something from one of the Core worlds. _Columba,_ the tiny label proclaimed, a treat from Chandrila, where he was born.

Absently he sat at the table and unwrapped the chocolate. Hidden inside was a message, just as he remembered. They were usually meaningless platitudes espousing lofty thoughts of _life, laugh, or love._ If the sugar in the confection wasn’t enough to rot your teeth, the stupid message was usually enough to seal the deal.

But that didn’t stop him from unfolding the wrapper and reading the underbelly.

_Live from your heart, it will never steer you wrong._

He wasn’t sure if the stupid little message wanted to make him laugh or make him cry. Sure, it was just clever marketing, printed on billions of pieces of mass-produced candy shipped across the galaxy. But for a stupid slogan created in some heartless advertiser’s office, it still spoke to him. Living from the heart was the one thing he failed to do in the past decade. Too many mistakes. Too much anger. Too much that could never be forgiven. Too many chances thrown away.

Ben let out a sigh before nibbling the corner of the chocolate square. He let it melt in his mouth and allowed the cacao’s rich taste to spread across his tongue. There were no sweets at the Jedi encampment. After that, he subsided on vegmeat and polystarch like any other member of the First Order. Even as its leader, he didn’t allow himself such frivolous luxuries. Chocolates were for children.

But as he savored the bittersweet flavor, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander to a easier time when he would sneak a sweet before dinner, thinking he had been oh-so-clever and swiped one past his parents.

_You’ll spoil your dinner,_ he could still hear his father say from the _Falcon’s_ narrow little galley as he tried his best to whip something up that looked nutritious.

“Some things never change,” a voice said next to him.

Ben opened his eyes, and found his father—or at least the memory of him, or whatever this manifestation was—seated beside him on the curved bench, still dressed in the clothing in which he died.

Ben allowed himself a small grin. Busted again.

“The empty wrapper always gave you away,” Han mused. “But what your mother didn’t know never hurt her.”

Ben sadly nodded in agreement before answering, “If life could have only been that simple.”

His father leaned forward, resting his forearms on the Dejarik table. “It could be again,” he said. “It depends on what you want to do with it now.”

Ben took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew it out before he replied. “I don’t know what I can do. I can’t show my face anywhere in the galaxy at this point. Both sides want me dead.”

His dad picked at a ragged cuticle for a moment, then turned his attention back to him. “Both sides will eventually think you’re already dead. From where I see it, that looks like a fresh start to me.”

Ben’s brows knitted into a frown.

“While you were snoozing in that Empire era TIE, Rey was already covering your tracks,” Han explained. “She was in there telling the muckety mucks—that Dameron kid and his friend General Big Deal—all about how you died while helping her take down Palpatine.”

Ben scowled. “It doesn’t make it right.”

His father smirked for a moment and said, “Rey didn’t entirely lie either. She told them that the mighty Kylo Ren saved her life.”

The headache festering behind Ben’s eyes throbbed all the more as he pictured Rey looking at her friends and allies in the eyes and betraying them with falsehoods.

“I never asked for her to lie for me,” he spat out as he briefly pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Do you really think you could’ve stopped her?”

Ben snorted at the thought. There was no way in hell he could ever stop Rey. She was a force to be reckoned with.

“She bought you time,” Han said. “No one is going to be looking for a dead man. So, go somewhere where you can start over and be the man your mother and I always hoped you’d be.”

“And what’s that?” he answered, unable to mask the bitterness that crept into his voice. One good act could never undo everything the monster in him destroyed. His eyes prickled with the sting of unshed tears, and he tipped his head back to prevent them from spilling forth.

“Happy,” his father answered with a watery smile.

Ben blinked once, and those traitorous tears streamed silently down his cheeks. He choked back the sob that threatened to follow. Scrunching his eyes shut, he tried to rein his emotions back in. His father was there so many times when he’d emotionally unraveled as a child. It wasn’t a surprise he was there now.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” he finally choked out. His apology felt tinny and hollow. There was nothing he could say to make up for what he did.

As he trembled, he felt his father’s hand on his back, as warm and reassuring as it was when he was little. He took a shaky breath before he opened his eyes back up to gaze into his father’s rheumy ones that were as warm and kind as he remembered.

“I know, Ben,” his dad gently replied. “But you’re home now. That’s what matters.”

Ben swiped his tears away with the back of his hand and sniffled once. “I’m scared,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “What if I screw it up?”

“It’s okay to be scared, but try anyway,” Han answered. His father tapped at Ben’s chest and added, “Lead with this. It will never steer you wrong, kid.”

The same advice from the chocolate wrapper.

“That’s easier said than done,” Ben said.

His father smiled again. “I have a feeling that as long as you’re with Rey, you’ll be on the right path,” he said.

He couldn’t help but nod. His dad was right; Rey was his beacon home long before he realized she was lighting the way for him. He wasn’t alone anymore. While it would likely take time getting used to, it still fit like the missing piece to a puzzle that had been unfinished for years.

“Dad,” he quietly asked, “will I ever see you again?”

His father nodded. “I’ll always be here as long as you need me,” he said in reply.

Ben allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment, savoring the quiet peace that filled the room. He knew his father wouldn’t be there when he opened them. Not quite ready to let go, he imagined his dad still sitting beside him. Just because he was nothing more than a memory, didn’t make him any less real. His father would always be there, and there was nothing—not death, nor war, nor despair—that could ever take him away.

When he opened his eyes, the room seemed a little bigger and a little emptier. His stomach rumbled, and he popped the last bit of the chocolate into his mouth. A little bit of it had melted on to his fingertips, and he absently wiped them on his pants. He knew he should consume something of substance, but he was too tired to eat. All he wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a week.

Sifting through the ration pack, he retrieved one of the hydromeal packets. He unscrewed the cap to the water bottle and tore the packet open. Dumping the powder into the bottle, he reattached the cap and vigorously shook the bottle to mix in the instant meal powder. Opening the bottle once again, he sniffed its contents—it smelled like meiloorun melon—before downing the drink in a few quick gulps.

Now that his belly was full, Ben promised himself he’d clean up the mess later. He’d been wearing the same clothes for too long to count. His feet ached. They were likely raw after being soaked, since he was drenched on Kef Bir. He quickly tugged off both boots and left them piled under the table. His socks followed in quick succession.

His knees creaked as he pushed himself to a stand and headed toward the main cabin. It was his parents’ room when he was a child. He hoped the hydro was primed in the ‘fresher and he could take a steaming hot shower instead of a sonic. He wanted nothing more than to wash off the salt, dirt, ash, and blood that he had accumulated since the last time he bathed. Everything felt filthy and covered in a layer of grime. He didn’t even want to know what was stuck in his hair. His tunic hit the floor the moment he entered the cabin, not caring where it landed. And as he reached the waiting fresher, he peeled off his pants and underwear.

“Thank the Maker,” he mumbled to no one as he activated the hydro and steam began to fill the smaller room. He adjusted the temperature, and set the water to just this side of scalding before stepping under its stream.

Ben stood there for a moment and watched as the grime started to rinse away. The soap smelled crisp and clean, with all the verdant freshness that reminded him of Rey. Methodically, he lathered up and scrubbed himself until he was red and nearly raw and no longer felt filthy. Once clean, he turned his back to the hydro stream and closed his eyes as the water sluiced down his aching back. Alone with his thoughts, he let himself fully take in everything that had transpired in the past few days—his mother’s death, Rey’s mercy, and Palpatine’s fury. But what really reached deep within him and tore him up inside was how close he’d come to losing the one person he loved more than anyone.

Rey.

The thought of losing her forever hit like a sucker punch. It made him queasy in the pit of his stomach, and he choked back the bile as it rose in his throat. He leaned forward until he rested his forearms against the hydro’s permaglass wall and let the floodgates open. Overwhelmed and overtired, he was running on empty. Ben Solo finally allowed himself to quietly sob.

o.o.o.o

It was already dark by the time Rey made her way out of the medbay. The physician gave her a clean bill of health, and she was ready to head back to the _Falcon_. Hopefully Rose had been able to move Ben there without much fuss. She hadn’t heard otherwise, so that had to be a good thing. Word would’ve spread quickly through the Resistance base if he were apprehended.

She could smell the smoke from the bonfires in the clearing. Some of the civilian pilots that General Calrissian wrangled into joining the final battle were celebrating with the troops. Music and laughter filtered through the trees. Rey flinched at a pop overhead only to see the night sky light up with a million sparks from celebratory fireworks. There was probably enough liquor flowing at the celebration to inebriate a fully grown happabore.

Another firework exploded with a shower of purple, and the gathered revelers cheered in delight. She’d already waved off Poe’s invitation to the festivities. She needed to clean up. It wasn’t a lie, after all. Her once-white outfit was a dingy shade of gray, and she was pretty sure the stench she smelled was coming from her. But all she wanted to do was to locate Ben and make sure that he was okay. Then, and only then, could she rest.

She followed the dirt path back that led to the _Falcon’s_ landing zone. In the distance, two Togrutas tended to an A-Wing that had taken heavy damage, their distinctive montrals standing out in the moonlight. The female mechanic Rey had seen several times called out to her and waved.

“You’re not at the party!” she exclaimed.

Rey gestured to the _Falcon_ and called out in return, “I’m too knackered. Besides, these clothes could stand on their own at this point.”

“Is it true what they’re saying,” the other Togruta called out, “that you took down Palpatine?”

Not one to brag, Rey wasn’t ready to share all of the details with them. With a shy grin, she answered before heading up the ramp, “I had some help.”

As she entered the ship, she reached out in the Force. Ben was definitely on board. His Force signature was quiet and barely perceptible.

She hit the button to close the ramp for the night, and she shooed away a trio of moths that followed her in.

“Ben?” she called out, making her way to the main hold. The food was where he’d left it on the Dejarik table. She picked up the ration pack and scoffed at its contents. Normally, she wasn’t picky, but the idea of another protein bar or energy chew turned her stomach. He’d left the fruit untouched.

When he didn’t answer, she tried again, this time a little louder, “Ben, where are you?”

He wasn’t in distress, she reassured herself. She would have felt that tremor in the Force, no doubt. He was probably making himself scarce in some hidey hole that only he knew about, she thought. By the time she reached her cabin, she spied his sweater where he discarded it on the floor. She stooped to pick it up, and her back rebelled in pain. Bringing the sweater to her face, she drank in its distinct scent. Beneath the dirt and grime, it smelled uniquely like him. She couldn’t quite describe it, but it immediately reminded her of Ben.

As she stood, she finally found him. Ben, the son who had finally returned home after a lifetime of being lost, was sound asleep in her bunk, his raven hair partially covering his face, one arm tossed over his head, his lips parted slightly as a quiet snore escaped past them.

Rey silently watched as his bare chest slowly rose and fell with each breath. He was much thinner than the last time she’d seen him without a shirt. His year as Supreme Leader obviously took a toll on his body. The quilted blanket had partially slipped off him at some point, exposing the jut of his hip and the black fabric of his underwear. A bare knee poked out lower down on the bunk as well his right foot. He was missing most of the toenail on his great toe, as if he’d damaged it some point in the past, and it had not grown back properly.

Not wanting to disturb him, she headed to the ‘fresher, grabbing his pants that were in the hatchway. She closed the door and placed his filthy clothes in the laundry processor. Afterwards, she stripped down and added her own to it before activating it.

Rey quickly showered and wrapped herself in a towel before exiting the ‘fresher. Thankfully, Ben was still fast asleep. Without making a sound, she tugged on a drab tank and a pair of panties. Even with the _Falcon’s_ ventilation system, it was too hot to sleep in anything more while she lived on Ajan Klos.

She used the towel to dry her hair the best she could before tossing it on the floor on top of the one Ben had used. Her hairbrush was on the shelf beside the bunk. She grabbed it and pulled in through her damp hair. As she was returning the brush to the shelf, Ben’s eyes fluttered open, and he sat up. Clearly disoriented, he scanned his surroundings as he raked his hand through his tangled hair.

Rey could feel his anxiety spike through the Force as he blinked the sleep away from his unfocused eyes. “It’s okay,” she reassured, her hand moving to his shoulder to steady him. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Ben swallowed once and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I’m in your bed, aren’t I?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” she answered nervously.

Everything felt awkward. It wasn’t how she pictured they’d be after surviving the battle on Exegol. The last thing she imagined was the two of them in just their underwear, not knowing what to say to the other.

“It was rude of me to fall asleep here,” he started to explain.

“What?” she replied.

“You can have your bed, Rey,” he said.

She crossed her arms and said, “No.”

“What do you mean _No_?” Ben replied. “I used to sleep out on the med bunk in the hold all the time.”

“I said no,” she answered. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with him. “Besides, there is enough room for both of us. Just scoot over.”

“Rey…”

“Look, it’s not as if I’m asking you to join me and rule the galaxy or something,” she said. Ben couldn’t help but grin at the reference. “But I’m exhausted, and I know you’re exhausted, and I don’t want to be alone. So, scoot over.”

Their eyes met for a moment. Rey nervously chewed on her bottom lip before his face lit up with a shy smile. His eyes crinkled as he grinned, and those deep creased dimples that she only recently learned he had emerged on his face. Ben pulled the blanket back and ducked into the alcove of the bunk, giving her ample room to settle in. Once she was in bed, he covered her with the blanket.

He nervously started to move away from her until his back was pressed against the back wall of the bunk.

“Where are you going?’ she asked.

“I’m giving you more room.”

Rey reached out to him and opened her arms. “Now you‘re too far away,” she said. “Come closer.”

He tilted his head to the side as if he was trying to make sense of her request.

“I promise I don’t bite,” she said as she gestured for him to move closer.

Slowly he inched his way back toward her until they were nearly touching. She reached up and cupped his cheek, and he leaned into the touch. Her thumb skimmed across his lower lip. His eyes slid closed for a moment as he placed the smallest of kisses against her finger pad.

“Maybe I want you to bite,” he said before leaning in and gently kissing her lips. It was tentative and definitely inexperienced, but it didn’t stop her from wrapping her arm around him and drawing him closer.

There wasn’t any one to interrupt. Snoke and Palpatine were gone. There was no one tearing him apart from the inside. His Force signature was no longer turbulent. Where she had previously felt chaos, she found peace.

She wanted to kiss him over and over again, eager to explore the secret spots that would make him sigh. But Ben pulled back for a moment, unable to stifle a yawn. She wasn’t going to fight the fact that they both needed to rest. There would be ample time in the morning to pick up where they left off. Without saying a word, she gently eased his head down until it rested on her chest. It was so instinctual to card her fingers through his hair as he melted into her embrace. His body curled around hers perfectly as his arm wrapped around her midsection.

“I used to hear so many voices in my head, I didn’t know where I ended and they began,” he confessed.

She paused for a moment, kissed the top of his head, and answered, “And what do you hear now?”

“Just your heartbeat.”

They lay there for several minutes, comfortable with the silence that spread across the room until the only things she heard were the quiet whisper of the ventilation system and the soft ebb and flow of his breathing as he quickly drifted to sleep.

Not wanting to disturb him, she used the Force to dim the lights in the cabin, casting the room into darkness’s welcoming fold. Sleep called to her too, and she allowed herself to ease into slumber, comforted by the weight of his head resting on her and the warmth of his body surrounding her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erudite bit of trivia, that may only interest me:
> 
> Columba is a genus for, you guessed it, doves.
> 
> The sappy wrapper message is actually from a Dove chocolate wrapper.


	4. Ajan Kloss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben contemplated what he was about to say before answering. He nervously pulled a hand through his hair as he formulated his thoughts. “You’re running away with me, and all I have are the clothes on my back and my name,” he pointed out. “Neither is worth anything, but with that little nest egg, I feel better knowing you won’t starve to death because of me.”
> 
> Rey was floored by his offer. When he offered his hand on the Supremacy, he had the galaxy at his fingertips. Anything he wanted, he could’ve likely had—power, riches. But now he was nothing more than a pauper. The once Supreme Leader now possessed an empire of nothing. He gave it all away willingly. She grasped his hand, something she had yearned to do since he had first offered it. It now felt like a lifetime ago. She gave it a little squeeze and said, “Then we have everything we need.”
> 
> __________
> 
> For he has the saddest damaged eyes  
> and she is the little girl who always knew how to  
> heal,  
> patch,  
> love  
> damaged souls  
> \--Windows to the Soul, Nikita Gill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey kids, this is the chapter where the story starts to earn its E rating!
> 
> Trigger Warning for this chapter: nongraphic reference to past abuse (Ben.) If you want to skip over it, the passage starts with, "It’s repulsive,” he whispered in return."
> 
> It is safe to resume reading with the sentence, “You’re not revolting,” she reassured. Another stroke across his stubbly chin and she added, “Not even this.”

Rey roused from sleep as whatever she had been dreaming about faded into the recesses of her mind and slipped back into the unknown. She took a slow, deep breath and savored the moment. They fit together perfectly like two pieces from the same puzzle. Ben surrounded her in a warm embrace as he spooned her from behind. Somewhere during the night, his hand snaked under her tank and palmed the expanse of her abdomen. His breath blew gently in her hair each time he exhaled.

She dared not move. If she did, the little bubble of happiness that enveloped them would pop, and she would have to face the reality that waited for them outside the _Falcon_ ’s safe confines _._ There was too much uncertainty. Out there stood judgement and wrath if they uncovered her secret. Inside her cabin, Rey could pretend for a few more minutes that the outside world didn’t matter.

They had found their peace, and she didn’t want to surrender it just yet.

“I know you’re awake,” Ben mumbled into her ear as he pulled her closer.

“What gave me away?” she coyly asked.

A kiss to the crown of her head. “You fidget a lot when you’re not sleeping.”

Rey giggled. “I guess I’ll have to work on that,” she answered. “But I like this.”

“Like what?”

“Waking up next to someone,” she said, leaning into him. “It’s nice.”

Waking together was something Rey didn’t know she needed. Still achy and exhausted from the battle, she wanted to nothing more than a languorous start to the day where neither had to worry about anything.

As she sighed with contentment, she realized he silently agreed with her. His bourgeoning sex pressed against her ass while they cuddled together. She wasn’t the only one enjoying the moment’s intimacy. It was yet another new thing they could discover together.

But before she could even react to his arousal, he shirked away and retreated toward the bunk’s far wall.

Rey spun around at his reaction. Concern etched her brow and she reached out for him. It only made him retreat further. “What’s wrong?” she asked, certain that his erection had already flagged.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, his face a growing shade of red. Shame riddled with anxiety spiked through their shared bond. “I should not have subjected you to my baser behavior.”

She scooted toward the middle of the bed, careful not to startle him further. “It’s normal, Ben,” she soothed. “It’s just biology.”

“It’s repulsive,” he whispered in return.

“Who told you that?”

He sat silent for several uncomfortable moments. The look on his face said it all. She didn’t need to ask who had reinforced that type of self-loathing. Palpatine poisoned everything he touched.

“He’s gone,” she said, unwilling to even let the monster’s name sour in her mouth. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Rey afforded him the space and the silence to work through his emotions. There was a confession that sat silent on his tongue, desperately trying to spill forth. She waited patiently for Ben to form his thoughts and try to explain his anxiety.

Staring up at the bunk’s ceiling he said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I made the mistake of touching myself once,” he said, the words flowing forth. He sounded distant and detached, much as did when he donned a mask to hide. “I’d been Snoke’s apprentice for only a few months.”

He slid closer to her on the bunk as he grew more comfortable with his story. She remained silent as he continued. “I was in the hydro, and I don’t know how he found out.”

He didn’t need to explain further. Rey was fully aware how Palpatine had wormed his way into Ben’s mind, likely younger than he could remember. And now, the names Palpatine and Snoke felt all the more interchangeable.

Ben didn’t flinch as she sat beside him and gathered his hand in hers. His eyes slid shut for a moment as he continued his recollection of the past. “But afterwards, my master called me to his chambers,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it. It’s where he taught me. But when I got there, he knew.”

She gave his hand a little squeeze as he struggled to find the right words. He gripped her hand back in return. “He showed me what a waste of energy it had been. How it was revolting. So, he corrected me.”

It shocked her how, even now after he was free from his master’s clutches, he still sanitized his past abuse at Snoke’s hand.

“You mean he hurt you,” Rey gently clarified.

He let out a small, defeated sigh and offered a nod so slight she would’ve missed it were she not paying attention. “Something like that,” he whispered, shame learned after years of conditioning crept into his voice. “But I learned my lesson. I never touched myself again.”

Rey gently cupped his cheek. The top of her thumb grazed over his chin. Black stubble had sprouted in the days since he had departed his flagship in search of her when they were still enemies.

“You’re not revolting,” she reassured. Another stroke across his stubbly chin and she added, “Not even this.”

“I’ll shave it off.”

She placed a finger over his lips to silence him. “Keep it,” she said. “A beard suits you.”

Slowly, she straddled his hips. When he didn’t shirk away in fear, she leaned in. “There’s nothing about you that’s revolting.” She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his angled jaw. Another kiss grazed the shell of his ear. “Did you know your scar is gone?”

He shook his head as his fingertips skimmed across his right cheek in search of a scar that was no longer there. It must have been erased when she had healed the gaping hole she had put in his belly with his own lightsaber. Part of her loved his scar. It had marked him as hers and no longer Snoke’s.

She kissed his lips; it was barely a peck on his mouth. “Do you trust me?” she whispered into the next kiss.

“Of course I do,” he sighed back as her tongue teased its way into his mouth. His anxiety started to subside, and he wove his hand into her loose hair. She didn’t stop with just his mouth. She kissed her way down his neck, nipping in some places with her teeth, soothing in others with her tongue. He was so pliant under her gentle touch.

He gifted her with a wordless moan when she dragged her teeth over his tiny taut nipple. She didn’t need to ask him what felt good. His sighs and gasps were enough for her to know she was turning him on. As she slowly crawled down his body, his belly quivered as her loose hair teased his most sensitive, hidden spots. Ben Solo was ticklish. That was definitely a tidbit of information she would squirrel away for future use.

Her tongue dipped into the flat of his navel, and a breath hitched in his chest in response. Ben shivered as tiny goosebumps erupted all over his skin. Another sensitive spot on which to lavish attention in the future. When she reached the waistband of his black underwear, she stopped and searched his eyes for his silent consent.

“Tell me if you want to stop,” she said, offering him an out if his fear spiked again. She smiled when he gifted her with a slight nod before she moved further.

A small hiss escaped his lips when she palmed his hardening cock through the tight fabric of his briefs. “It’s just us, Ben,” she said as his eyes slid shut and he welcomed her ministrations. “The only person I want in your head is me.”

He swallowed against a dry throat, and his tongue darted out onto his lower lip. She loved how his face flushed a bit with his growing arousal and how that rosy tint spread to create blotches on his upper chest. He’d exposed his underbelly to her in combat, but yielding to her in bed was a far more intoxicating rush. His larynx bobbed, and he groaned as she stroked his erection until it strained against his shorts.

Rey hooked her fingers into his underwear. She gave the jut of his hipbone a tiny kiss and whispered a gentle command, “Lift.”

Ben acquiesced and raised his hips off the mattress to allow her to slide his last stitch of clothing down his legs and over his feet. Tossing them on the floor, she turned her attention back to him. His cock was huge like the rest of him, its reddened tip peeking out from the taut stretch of the surrounding foreskin. A bead of clear liquid gathered at the slit.

She gently grasped his arousal, and he gifted her with a little gasp as she wrapped her hand around its thick girth. Slowly, she started to slide her hand up and down the hardened shaft. His skin was smooth and soft. When she reached the top, she rotated her hand around the sensitive tip before descending back toward the root, tugging the foreskin back to expose the head as she gently jerked him. His cock twitched in her hand as she repeated the journey up and down several more times, and he whimpered with each stroke, lost in the intimacy of it all.

“How do you feel?” she quietly asked.

He gasped once before answering, “Lightheaded.”

Oh, how she loved his honesty. She gently cupped his balls with her other hand, and they tightened in response. He was putty in her hands. His climax was quickly approaching. She could tell by the way the muscle in his belly jumped and how he tried to bite back the wordless noises that tumbled from his lips. Rey gathered the precome that bubbled from his tip with her thumb and smeared it over the head of his cock before she whispered in his ear.

“Hold on just a little longer for me,” she said as she gripped him by his base.

He moaned softly as she replaced her hand with her mouth, trailing wet, opened-mouthed kisses down the length of his shaft with her lips and tongue before turning attention briefly to his scrotum. She mouthed each of his balls before returning her attention once again upward. He stroked her hair as if he were uncertain what to do with his hands. The other grasped the sheet tightly in search of anything to anchor him in place.

She jerked him once, twice more before wrapping her lips around his sensitive tip and gently sucking, his erection sliding in and out as she worked him to the edge. Her name tumbled from his mouth as his breath started to hitch in his chest. A swirl of her tongue around the head of his cock was all it took to send him tumbling into ecstasy. His hips reflexively thrust upward as his entire body tensed. Rey could taste him on her tongue—salty, sour, and distinctly Ben as he spent in her mouth and she swallowed him down.

His cock twitched one last time as he softened in her hand. She waited for him to catch his breath before she released him. A final kiss to the sensitive tip and she let him go.

She wiped her mouth before asking again, “How do you feel now?”

“Loved,” he shyly answered with a small smile.

o.o.o.o

Three days passed, and Rey managed to keep Ben hidden. Reclaiming the _Falcon_ as her home was an effective way of keeping Chewbacca from nosing around. They were safe in the ship’s confines. The Resistance had always respected her privacy and space. Now that the battles were winding down, the need to use the _Falcon_ for a supply run or reconnaissance mission dwindled as well. The First Order was on the run. It would be months, if not years, before the scattered fleets were brought to heel. But for now, she was thankful that the ship was no longer needed, and Ben could recuperate without anyone realizing the former Supreme Leader was right under everyone’s noses.

Three days, and they had begun to discover what it meant to be alive. What started as nervous fumbling had begun to blossom into an exploration of passion, each letting the Force guide them as they discovered new ways that the dyad connected them on not just a spiritual, but physical level.

But Rey knew they were on borrowed time the longer they remained on Ajan Klos. She couldn’t hide Ben forever, and each day they stayed was another day they risked him being found. She had not brought him there only to be dragged out and kicked like an animal.

It didn’t take long after the victory for scores of fighters and their ships to chart courses for home. For all intents and purposes, their roles in the battle had come to an end. For that matter, so had Rey’s. She wasn’t needed in dogfights in space. She wouldn’t be needed to form a government. Her purpose was plain from the moment she joined the fray a year before. Her task was to defeat the dark forces that pulled the strings behind the scenes. She journeyed to the belly of the beast and slayed the monster.

Somewhere along the line, she fulfilled the general’s dying wish. Rey brought Ben Solo home.

The mass departures made for perfect timing to leave. But to do so, she would have to say goodbye to her friends as well. It made her heart ache, yet it was time. She was never a soldier, and she needed to forge her own future moving forward.

Rey left the _Falcon’s_ safe confines and headed over to Mission Command shortly before the sun rose. Ben was in the hydro when she tightened her belt around her freshly laundered cross-wrap and headed toward the cavern that housed Poe’s office. He always started the day before nearly everyone on the base. The celebrations in the days before had yielded to emotional goodbyes and new missions all around her. Chewbacca was scheduled to depart for a visit to Kashyyyk on a shuttle departing later in the day. Her friend Jessika Pava was slated to lead Black Squadron on a mission to neutralize the remains of the First Order’s fleet orbiting her home world of Dandoran.

The base’s inner workings were as busy as ever as Rey weaved her way to find Poe. The sooner she could grab a moment of his time, the easier it would be. A pair of fighter pilots strode past her as they headed from the barracks toward the tarmac. She nodded a quick hello to Kaydel Ko Connix as she reached Mission Command. While they were both friends with Poe, they had never grown especially close. She was not quite a friend, but definitely someone she had grown to like and trust. For Poe, Lieutenant Connix had become his right hand and personal advisor within his inner circle.

“I need to talk to Poe,” Rey said to Connix just outside her friend’s office.

Kaydel grabbed her datapad from her desk as well as a handful of flimsies before answering. “He’s just wrapping up a meeting with General Finn. Go on in, I’m sure they’d both love to see you.”

Rey nodded her thanks. She wrapped on the door before activating the opening mechanism. The hatch whooshed open and she stepped into office.

“Your Excellencies!” she joked with a deep bow as she entered the room.

Poe and Finn were poring over the details of the Doran System. It was in Hutt Space, so the mission to liberate Dandoran would be harrowing and complicated by Hutt politics.

“General Finn,” Poe said, “we have a visitor!”

“You are correct, General Dameron.”

She chuckled how they still bandied about their new titles as if they were two children playing dress-up. Both men erupted in laughter and welcomed her into the room with a hug. Poe punctuated it with a peck on her check. “Rey,” Poe added, “you’re just in time. We were planning the strike on the Order flying over Dondoran.”

“About that,” she stammered. There was no sense avoiding her visit’s purpose.

“We were wondering if you wanted to help with bringing the Hutts to our side, or if …” Finn started.

Her palms felt sweaty, and her heart raced as she interrupted her closest friend. No sense beating around the bush. “I think it’s time for me to leave,” she stated plainly and waited for their disappointment and anger.

“You can’t be serious,” Poe exclaimed as he shut the holomap off. The miniature star system winked out, leaving the room a bit darker than it was before.

She wiped her sweaty palms on her leggings and tried her best to quell the rising anxiety that was bubbling up from her core.

“Poe’s right. We need you,” Finn added. There was no mistaking the sadness in his deep brown eyes. “We’re only getting started.”

Rey shook her head sadly as she disagreed. “No, you don’t,” she said. “I’m not a soldier. I’ve never been one.”

“But what about Exegol?” Finn asked. “You beat Palpatine! We need a warrior like you on our side.”

“The Force willed that I faced the Emperor,” she said. She could not stomach the thought of her closest friends knowing that the monster was her grandfather. “Now that he’s gone, the Force doesn’t need to use me as a weapon anymore.”

“Rey,” Finn started to plead, “We’re so close.”

She could feel the tears welling up behind her eyes. This was going to be a hard conversation no matter how her friends responded. Worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, she replied, “You’ll be fine without me. There are things I need to do for myself.”

“Can’t you do them here?” Poe added.

“I need to understand where my place is with the Force,” she started as she tried to find the right words without giving too much away.

_I need to figure out what it means to be a dyad in the Force with Ben,_ she silently added.

Both men sat silent while she tried to explain. Her home was with her friends, but her heart was with Ben. Right now, it was the heart that needed healing more than anything.

“What else is there to know?” Finn asked. “You’re a Jedi. You conquered the dark side.”

“I’m not so certain I am a Jedi,” Rey said.

She wasn’t ready for the rigid polarity to which the Jedi and Sith clung. She knew she was the light’s instrument. But the dark was there as well. It was her birthright as much as the light was Ben’s. Somewhere in the middle, they had found balance. And with it, the first semblance of peace where the two intersected. “I need to figure out where I fit in with all this.”

“What do you mean you’re not a Jedi?” Finn said incredulously. “I thought that was what the general was training you to be.” 

“She was,” Rey replied. It was true. In the past year, Leia became the mentor for which she was searching, helping her understand the Force in ways she had never imagined.

Leia was a patient instructor that always sought to help Rey find the serenity of the light side, and the power that came from being its instrument.

“But there’s still so much I need to learn. I haven’t even finished building my own ‘saber. I’m so close, and if I could just connect a bi…”

“We haven’t even started to rebuild,” Poe interrupted. “We still need to form a coalition government.”

“I’m not a politician,” she answered as she stroked his cheek, “but you are.”

The disappointment in the room was palpable. She knew the sting of being left behind first hand. It was a hurt you carried for a long time, if not the rest of your life. “Look,” she stammered. “It’s not like I’m leaving forever. I’ll always be there when you truly need me. But for now, I just need to go where the Force is leading me.”

Before she could react, Poe drew her into a tight hug. Finn followed next and completed the embrace. If only things could be so simple as to be solved with an embrace. “You’ll let us know when you get settled, right?” Finn whispered.

“Of course,” she answered back, her voice thick with emotion. Some day she would let them know about the choices she made. Some day she hoped they would forgive her for choosing a former enemy. But the Force worked in mysterious ways, and she did not regret her decisions.

It didn’t make the moment any less painful.

They huddled together for several long moments wrapped in each other’s arms. It was a brief respite that Rey wanted to remember, how they stood together and supported each other, promising to always be there for each other.

Poe was the first to break the hug. He wiped his eye with the back of his hand. “Take care of yourself, Rey,” he said.

“You, too,” she replied.

She gave them each one more hug before bidding them farewell and exiting the office.

o.o.o.o

Rey held back tears as she left the command center. There was no question she wanted nothing more than to depart with Ben and start a new chapter in her life, but Finn and Poe had become family along the way. A little part of her heart broke knowing it would likely be months or years before she saw either of them again. Maybe by then she would have bought Ben some time where they wouldn’t see him as an enemy. Perhaps they could someday learn to forgive him as well.

She absently wiped a tear from her cheek as she headed down the cavern. At first, she didn’t hear him. She was too wrapped up in her own thoughts. But when Finn called out a second time, she stopped in her tracks and turned around.

“Rey,” he yelled, “wait!”

“Don’t make this any harder than it is, Finn,” she said, trying her best not to break down.

He closed the distance as Rey waited to see what he had to say. “You just got back and you’re already leaving!”

She nervously chewed on her lower lip. If they found out about Ben, he wouldn’t even have a chance to defend himself. They wouldn’t imprison him. They would execute him. “Like I said before, it’s not forever,” she tried to explain. “I just need to do some things.”

Finn sat silent for a moment before calling her bluff. He took a deep breath before the bottom dropped out.

“I know he’s here.”

Her stomach lurched, and her hands suddenly felt clammy. She tried her best not to let her emotions show. They were so close to slipping away. Her breath caught in her throat, and it felt like the world was crashing in all around her.

“Who’s here?” she countered, trying to play dumb yet very much aware of the slight tremor to her voice.

A tiny muscle under Finn’s eye twitched, and he clenched his teeth for a moment. She could feel his fury bubble to the surface and threaten to spill over. She had betrayed her friends. There was no denying that. A pair of Beebee droids scurried past before he spat and he grabbed her wrist to keep her from fleeing. “Don’t lie to me, Rey!”

She pulled her hand back and stood silent for a beat, her heart hammering in her chest. Finally, she quietly conceded. There was no hiding the truth anymore. “Did Rose tell you?”

“Rose knows?” he fumed as he was letting that revelation sink in. “No, Rose didn’t tell me!”

Rey drew in a shaky breath as she felt the sting of unshed tears that gathered in her eyes. She hated lying to those she loved.

“Then how?” she asked.

Finn took a step closer. Her fight or flight reaction started to rise to the fore.

“I felt his presence when you landed,” he explained, a quiet pride filling his voice as he explained his newly-found skills. “It’s what I was trying to tell you on Pasaana. I can feel things in the Force. I’m not as talented as you are when it comes to this, but I think I’ve known I could do this for a while.”

Rey blinked, and all the tears she was desperately trying to hold back streamed down her face. On one hand, it was terrifying to let her secret out. On the other, it felt like the weight she had been carrying around all morning was suddenly lifted from her back.

“He’s on the _Falcon,_ ” she finally confessed with a whisper. “But you can’t tell anyone he’s here. Please. They’ll just hurt him.”

She felt Finn’s anger recede a bit when he answered, “But he’s hurt a lot of us, you included.”

Rey nodded in agreement. She knew that was very true. She didn’t need a list of all of the unforgivable deeds Ben committed as Kylo Ren. She already knew them. That monster deserved the military tribunal and its swift justice. But none of them saw the transformation that had occurred somewhere between Kef Bir and Exegol. She knew first-hand the power of mercy, and how it could change hearts. If only Finn could understand that as well. After all, he too walked away from the First Order.

“I died on Exegol,” she said. It sounded outlandish, the stuff fantasy tales were built upon.

“I know,” was all he could say in response. “I felt that happen, too.”

Rey threaded her fingers with his, grateful he didn’t pull away at the contact. “Ben fought by my side,” she started. “He helped me defeat the Emperor. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”

“That’s what we’re calling him now?” Finn interrupted.

Rey pressed her finger to his lips to silence him. “It’s his real name,” she explained. “He’s Ben Solo, the general’s son.”

“That’s supposed to make it better?” Finn seethed. “He waged war against his own mother!”

Rey could feel his temper flaring. Finn had every right to hate him, but then she remembered a commonality that bound the two men together. “But he was stolen away from his family just like you.”

“He was their Supreme Leader,” he countered. “No one was holding a gun to his head when he nearly killed me or attacked us on Crait.”

“He was conditioned for loyalty like you were,” she explained. “Only he had Palpatine in his head since he was a child.”

When it felt like Finn was buying her explanation, she continued further. “Yes, there are things he has done that are unforgivable, but when he decided to fight by my side, he made the right choice. In that moment, he could have had anything—the Sith’s power, Palpatine’s fleet. He would have had everything he needed to defeat the Resistance once and for all. But you know what he chose?”

Finn quietly waited for the answer she was sure he already knew.

“Me,” she explained. “He decided to give his life force to me so that I could live.”

“Like that worm you healed in the tunnel?”

Rey nodded, a wistful smile creeping across her face as she recalled waking in his arms. In that moment, everything had felt right.

“Yes, just like that worm,” she said. “It nearly killed him in the process. He’s still recovering from it.”

Finn crossed his arms as he took it all him. “I don’t like it, Rey,” he said. “Ren is still dangerous.”

“Not anymore. _Ben,_ ” she said, emphasizing his birth name, “was willing to give his life for mine.”

Finn took a moment to process everything she told him. He could sense that he believed but still had doubts. “How do you know it’s not an act, Rey,” he asked, “that he’s not just using you right now?”

Rey dug into the pocket of her trousers and pulled out a small data stick. She grabbed Finn’s hand and pressed the stick into his palm without saying a word. It would never make up for Ben’s past. Nothing could. But it was his unspoken apology, something he created while she slept, a gift he left for her along with a cup of freshly brewed caffa. While it didn’t look like much, it was a first step to try to make things right in the galaxy.

He looked at the stick for a moment, turning it over as if trying to discern its contents. “What’s this?” he finally asked.

“I was going to transmit it to you once we were in space,” she explained. “It’s all of Ben’s access codes to the First Order. He uploaded them this morning. He checked; they’re still active. But he doesn’t think they’ll be good for long. The Order doesn’t know where he is either. They’ll likely declare him dead or missing in action within a day or two and wipe his access.”

Finn pocketed the stick before asking, “What’s on it?”

“Everything,” she said. “Codes to weapons, the fleet, bank accounts, you name it.”

“This can really be helpful,” he said, lost in thought.

“He also said it should let you into the Stormtrooper database,” she continued. “Hopefully you’ll be able to find out more about your family.”

“Thank you,” he quietly answered, his voice filled with a quiet gratitude. He sighed once before adding, “You love him, don’t you?”

Rey sniffled and wiped away the tears from her eyes. “I do,” she said with a nod. “I can’t really explain it, but we’re connected by the Force. I’m still trying to understand it, but it feels like we are two parts of a whole. And now that we’re together, everything feels right, like we were always meant to be together.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to explain it to me someday when we both understand the Force more,” Finn replied with a smile.

He drew her into a hug, and she wrapped her arms tightly around him, welcoming his warm embrace and the comfort it gave to be held by her closest friend. He was the first person she had met on this journey that had brought her to today. It hurt knowing she had no clue when she’d see him next, but she knew their paths would cross again, hopefully sooner than later.

“I’m going to miss you like crazy,” he said, tightening the embrace.

“I’ll be in contact soon,” she promised.

They stood there for several moments, silently saying their goodbyes. He placed a kiss on the top of her head before letting her go. “You need to get him out of here as soon as possible,” he explained. “Poe won’t be as understanding.”

He patted his pocket where he had placed the data stick before he added, “But this should buy Ren, I mean Ben, some goodwill.”

“I love you, Finn,” she said, “and thank you for understanding.”

They hugged one more time, and this time when they pulled apart, it was Finn who was wiping away tears. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said, “because I have so many questions about the Force, and I don’t know where to begin.”

She smoothed out his jacket as she stepped back. “Listen to your heart,” she said. It was her first of likely many lessons for him. “The Force surrounds us. Let it guide you. The most important thing to remember is balance. When you find that, things start to make more sense.”

o.o.o.o

After saying goodbye to Finn, Rey didn’t stop until she had reached the _Falcon._ She paused and took in her surroundings one last time. The sun had been up a little over an hour, and the makeshift tarmac was already starting to clear a bit. Civilians who had stopped over to refuel and rest were departing on all sides. With all the traffic overhead, she’d likely have to queue up for clearance to depart. A ground crew zipped by on a ground speeder, bringing supplies to one of the worn-down vessels, and a trio of Bothans boarded a cruiser likely destined for their home world. The rains from the night before had yielded to a bright morning as the sun cleared the eastern hills. It was going to be a beautiful summer day on Ajan Kloss.

She was about to bound up the _Falcon’s_ ramp and close it behind her when BB-8 came rolling out of the woods toward her, whistling and chirping to get her attention. The little droid didn’t stop until he came to a rest at your feet.

“Slow down, BB-8,” she said, “You’re talking way too fast.”

The droid continued to beep away as Rey took in what he said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop to say goodbye to you,” she answered. “And no, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

Another flurry of chirps as the Beebee unit continued to communicate with her.

“What do you mean Poe wants you to come along?” she asked. “He’s not sending you to spy on me, is he?”

The droid beeped out a clear negative.

“I see,” she replied. “He thought I needed help.”

BB-8 rolled forward as if to nod in agreement. Before Rey could ask anything else, he launched into another flurry of information.

“Oh no,” Rey said rolling her eyes, her voice thick with sarcasm, “this doesn’t have anything to do with Poe choosing to fly with Artoo?”

He pleaded his case before she interrupted him. “What do you mean Ben may need some help?” she replied, looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation. She knelt down so that only the droid could hear her. “Who told you he was here?”

The droid chirped his answer.

“Oh, she did, did she?” Rey said in reply. Of course, Rose would be the one to have convinced him to join them. BB-8 was an expert at repairs on the fly, and was fluent in more languages than he would ever admit. He’d already proven to be a fairly proficient interpreter. “No, I don’t think Ben is still searching for you. You can take it up with him when you meet him.”

“Well, let’s get a move-on,” she said as she gestured to the open ramp. “We’d best leave now before more find out he’s here.”

Rey bounded up the ramp and waited for BB-8 to roll in behind her. Once they were both on board, she smacked the button with her fist and watched the ramp close.

As she entered the lounge, she called out for Ben, BB-8 following close behind. “I’m back,” she yelled down the corridor to their cabin. “You about ready to take off?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she called out his name once again. She loved how his name easily rolled off her tongue.

“I’m right here,” he quietly answered, emerging from the opposite direction she’d guessed he would be. Dressed in the clothing Rose found for him, he looked like a different person than she had met a year before on Takodana. No longer dressed in head-to-toe black, Ben wore a dark brown pair of pants that reminded her of the loamy jungle floor that surrounded them on all sides. His tunic, hanging loosely to his hips, was the color of bleached out sand. He wiped the grease off his fingers with the rag he was holding before leaning in for a quick peck on the lips.

“Your chin tickles,” she commented, running her thumb over the beginnings of a patchy beard.

He pulled back a little bit as he answered, “I thought you wanted me to grow it out.”

“I like it,” she giggled before pulling him closer for a more meaningful kiss. He tasted like caffa. Before teasing another kiss out of him, she asked, “What were you fixing?”

“The hyperdrive motivator was acting up,” he explained. “The last thing we need is for this piece of junk to strand us floating in the middle of nowhere. When we land, we should probably …”

“Replace the quantum accelerator,” she said, finishing his sentence.

Rey loved the way Ben smiled. Sometimes it was just a coy grin. Other times, like now, were all crinkled eyes and crooked teeth. “I see you’re familiar with this flying garbage heap’s idiosyncrasies.”

“Don’t worry,” she grinned back. “She has it where it counts. We’ll make it there in one piece, but I promise we’ll replace the accelerator once we have enough credits to do it.”

“Who says we don’t already have it?” he answered, pulling her closer until he could nuzzle her ear.

“You’re funny, Solo,” she quipped. “Last time I checked, credits didn’t grow on trees.”

He turned his attention to the column of her neck and placed a moist kiss in that sweet spot where her jawmet her ear.. “When I uploaded those codes this morning,” he whispered, “I may have relieved the First Order of some of its funds.”

“That’s stealing!” she exclaimed.

“I’m not a thief,” he murmured in her ear. “Just a perk of being a Supreme Leader. It was a small enough transaction that no one will notice, just another expense paid out to some mercenary that no one has ever met. In fact, Jav Kabodi didn’t really exist in the Order’s database until this morning.”

“Just where did you transfer these funds?” she said.

“The Grand Reagent’s Bank on Nal Hutta,” he smugly answered, clearly proud of his handiwork.

“Nal Hutta?” she exclaimed. “Are you crazy? Every bounty hunter in the galaxy goes there. You really want to see how high of a price you or I have on our heads? Of all the banks in the galaxy, why there?”

“Because the bankers at Reagent’s don’t question where the money comes from,” he said. “Besides, it’s one of my father’s smuggling accounts. The deposit didn’t even set off any alarms. It just looks like our buddy Jav got paid. It’s amazing how his biometrics to access the account suddenly match mine.”

“Why, you sneaky little…”

“Everyone always focuses on me being a Skywalker,” he said with a grin. “A lot of people forget my dad was good at what he did too.”

“What if we get caught?” she asked

Ben contemplated what he was about to say before answering. He nervously pulled a hand through his hair as he formulated his thoughts. “You’re running away with me, and all I have are the clothes on my back and my name,” he pointed out. “Neither is worth anything, but with that little nest egg, I feel better knowing you won’t starve to death because of me.”

Rey was floored by his offer. When he offered his hand on the _Supremacy_ , he had the galaxy at his fingertips. Anything he wanted, he could’ve likely had—power, riches. But now he was nothing more than a pauper. The once Supreme Leader now possessed an empire of nothing. He gave it all away willingly. She grasped his hand, something she had yearned to do since he had first offered it. It now felt like a lifetime ago. She gave it a little squeeze and said, “Then we have everything we need.”

He leaned in to kiss her again when BB-8 chimed in, admonishing him with a long pattern of chirps and whistles.

His brow knitted into a frown, and he glared down at the droid. “Not that anyone asked you, ball,” he said, “but yes, I added a biometric two-step verification so slicers couldn’t hack into the account. Thanks for being so concerned.”

BB-8 nodded his approval as his retractable arm emerged from its housing and flashed Ben his approval with his terminal blow torch’s blue flame.

Ben turned to Rey and asked, “Where did you get the droid?”

“It appears that you aren’t the only criminal mastermind on board,” she giggled. “This little Beebee unit has boosted his fair share of ships. He’s a fairly good slicer at that, too.”

“Why is he here?” Ben asked.

If it wasn’t for BB-8, her life would have gone entirely differently. She’d still be trapped on that wasteland on the Outer Rim, still rummaging for bits of scrap in the ship boneyard outside Niima Outpost. She’d still be longing for a family that was long dead.

“Remember that droid you were so desperate to find about a year ago?” she teased.

BB-8 wasted no time adding his own snide introduction as he rolled straight into Ben’s shin.

“No, I don’t want the directions to Skywalker,” Ben snapped back at him. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

Rey laced her fingers with Ben’s and guided him back toward the cockpit. “He’s a good mechanic,” she soothed. “He knows his way around this ship pretty well.”

The both stood in silence, taking in their surroundings as they were about to venture out on their own. Rey closed her eyes, and for a moment, felt Han’s presence surround her. It was comforting, like a warm blanket enveloping her. It had been his ship for decades. For the first time, the _Falcon_ felt like it was theirs, a home they shared together.

“He’s really proud of you, Ben,” she said.

She watched his larynx bob as he swallowed once.

“I hope so,” he replied.

“Anything left to do on the preflight checklist?” she asked.

Ben shook his head. “No, we should be good to go.”

Rey gestured to the pilot’s seat, but he didn’t accept the invitation. “Not yet,” he quietly answered. “It was his seat. Someday, but I’m not ready yet.”

She didn’t push him out of his comfort zone. He’d come so far in just a handful of days, but she was well aware that he still had a lot to emotionally unpack when it came to his father. He loved Han with every fiber of his being, and the hardest person for Ben to forgive when the unforgivable had occurred would be himself. That would take time, and they had an abundance of it.

He waited to sit in the co-pilot’s chair until Rey eased into the pilot’s seat. She fiddled with the settings and slid the chair a little closer to the control panel. They worked in tandem as they fired up the ignition. The atmo thrusters roared to life.

She grabbed the headset from where it was looped around the thruster arm and secured the earpiece before adjusting the microphone.

“Preflight sequence is initiated, and we’re ready to go,” Ben announced.

Rey opened the comm channel and spoke into her headset. “Mission Command, this is the _Millennium Falcon,_ ” she said. “Requesting permission to take off.”

A voice crackled back in her ear, “Copy that, _Falcon._ We have you in the queue. You’re the fourth in line.”

“Roger that, Mission Command,” she replied.

They waited for the ships ahead of them to exit atmo, their afterburners flashing in the morning sky. Rey snuck one last look at her home for the past few months. She wouldn’t miss the mosquitos nor the suffocating humidity. While she loved the greenery that surrounded the base, she still preferred an arid climate to oppressively muggy tropical systems.

“ _Falcon,_ this is Mission Command,” the voice announced. “You are now clear for takeoff. Clear skies, Rey!”

The ship's engines ignited, and she could feel the low rumble deep in her chest. Slowly, the _Falcon_ ascended above the trees. She didn’t have to ask Ben to raise the landing gear. He was already one step ahead of her.

As they ascended into the stratosphere, Rey answered the control tower. “Copy that, Mission Command. May the Force be with you.”

Within a minute or two, the atmo yielded to space’s inky black vacuum. It didn’t take long for Ajan Kloss to look like a small blue and green marble. Once they cleared the other moons and entered the shipping lanes, Ben turned to Rey and asked, “Any changes to the flight plan?”

“Nope,” she answered. “The coordinates are unchanged.”

Rey firmly gripped the lever to activate the hyperdrive. She turned to Ben with a smile. They pulled it off. No one tried to stop them. No one hunted him down to throw him in a brig.

“Let’s see what this bucket of bolts can do, Captain,” he said.

She firmly pulled the lever back. For a split second, time seemed to stand before the multitude of stars around them transformed into smears of light. The ship lurched forward, and she could feel her body press into her seat. Her ears popped as time and space were bending around the _Falcon._

They entered the hyperspace lane, and the ship easily accelerated to light speed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, your comments and kudos warm the soul, especially on stressful days like today. Would love to know what you thought of this chapter.
> 
> I may combine the final two chapters. But as for now, there are two left. This has been a fun ride fixing what JJ has torn apart.


	5. Tatooine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben was right. He had every reason to question this decision. If Coruscant or Chandrila were the bright center of the galaxy, then Tatooine was the antithesis. But dust balls in the Outer Rim were the perfect place to hide in plain sight. No one would be looking for him in the least populated sector on Tatooine. There they could heal. There they could decide their future. They might decide in a few weeks or months that it was time to move on. Or maybe, just maybe, they would spend the rest of their lives calling his ancestral home theirs.
> 
> __________
> 
> Show me your kings,  
> And I will show you the queens that willed them,  
> That bred them, that taught them to do better.
> 
> \---Of Kings and Queens, Nikita Gill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter: None

It was nearly dawn when the _Falcon_ entered Tatooine’s arid atmosphere. The sky was still awash in the muted colors of a day about to start. Pale blues and purples breached the far horizon as the system’s twin suns were about to announce their appearance for the day. Sand stretched out as far as the eye could see with an occasional rocky cliff jutting from the dunes.

Ben dozed in his seat beside her as she angled the ship through a deep canyon before emerging on the other side that emptied into the Great Dune Sea. The topography reminded her of Jakku, not much more than sand and rock. She gave a massive sandcrawler a wide berth as she navigated the landscape. A few Jawas were clustered around the remnants of a smoldering campfire. Ben warned her earlier they would need to keep a close eye on the _Falcon—_ perhaps even consider a bubble shield if they landed in the desert _,_ or the little scavengers would strip the ship clean in the blink of an eye.

She was surprised by the cluster of clouds gathering on the western horizon. Rey had rarely seen them during her time on Jakku. The moisture farmers had usually managed to harvest all the water vapor from the sky before clouds could even form. She glanced at the chrono for a moment. They’d likely land before the suns rose, and it would still be relatively cool before the sands became scorching hot later in the day.

Ben roused in his seat and stretched before yawning. “Good morning,” he said, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“We’re almost there,” Rey noted as she eased the _Falcon_ closer to the planetary surface.

A domed homestead came into view as she swung the ship around for a landing. The landing gear rumbled into action, and sand blew everywhere around the craft as it came to a stop near the dwelling.

“You sure this is it?” he said as he rose to a stand.

“I am,” she nodded. “It feels right.”

BB-8 followed close behind as they made their way to the exit and waited for the ramp to descend. Warm, dry air flooded the ship as soon as the hatch was open. It reminded Rey of Jakku mornings.

She took the lead and descended the ramp, Ben and BB-8 in tow. The sand crunched beneath her feet. It was coarser than she remembered in Niima. Then again, they were standing on the lip of a rocky crater. The dome was merely the entrance to the subterranean dwelling below.

It must rain once in a while, Rey noted to herself. Patches of dead grass danced in the breeze at the edge of the crater.

She turned and gazed at Ben who seemed to be lost in thought. He closed his eyes for a moment as if he was taking it all in.

“I can feel my uncle here,” he absently noted.

Rey nodded and laced her hand with his. “Chewie once told me your grandfather’s mother is buried here.”

“Shmi,” he replied. “That was her name. She was a slave like Anakin. They say her death is what pushed him toward the dark side.”

Palpatine—she couldn’t stomach the thought that he was her grandfather— hurt so many generations of Ben’s family. She’d learned much about him from Leia. He was waiting with open arms when anger and grief made it so easy for Ben’s grandfather to descend into darkness. He was responsible for so much pain and suffering when it came to Leia and Luke. And he pulled all the strings since Ben was a child, guaranteeing that he too would succumb to the dark side, pushing and shoving Ben further down each time he’d tried to crawl toward the light.

Tatooine was where his family’s trauma all began. It was the site of so much pain and suffering. But as they stood there in that hour before dawn, it felt like something else. Something called them both to the desert planet. It felt hopeful, rich with the promise of a future to come where they could heal and grow outside the ever-present eyes of those who would seek to use their abilities as a weapon.

It was a place to start over and finally understand their shared destiny and what the Force had in store for them.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. She was projecting her thoughts so that anyone that was Force sensitive for miles around could read her mind. “There isn’t a generation of my family that wasn’t touched by that monster.”

She turned to face him. He looked past her, toward the rocky outcropping in the distance. “But I’m glad it was you who ended it all.”

“Ben,” she murmured.

“We couldn’t save ourselves,” he added. “It took his own flesh and blood to bring down that bastard once and for all.”

“But I don’t want to be part of his family,” she spat out. The name Palpatine tasted like ash on her tongue. It made her skin crawl to acknowledge that she was his granddaughter. Things were so much simpler, less painful when she was just Rey from Jakku—no family and no past.

No sins of generations past to wear like a yoke around her shoulders.

“Your power doesn’t come from him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he soothed. 

“But you said,” she started.

“It never did,” he interrupted. “Your power is all your own.”

“How can you be so certain?” After all, she’d seen visions of herself dressed in black, her heart hardened with hatred. She brought down that transport on Pasaana. Only the Sith could call the lighting like that. She carried darkness with her everywhere she went.

“Because you lit the way for me home,” Ben said as he drew her into his arms. “Your strength comes from your compassion, not your biological family. You’re strong because you’re Rey, not because of someone’s legacy.”

Rey buried her face in his tunic and breathed in his scent. She melted into his embrace and felt his arms wrap around her body. “I don’t want to be a Palpatine,” she murmured into his chest.

He rested his chin on the top of her head for a moment and answered, “That’s okay. I never really wanted to be a Skywalker either. And since they’re all gone now, we can be whoever we want.”

She pulled back a bit and gazed into his deep brown eyes. “When did you become so wise, Ben Solo?”

He leaned in and placed the gentlest of kisses to the center of her forehead. “I don’t know,” he said with a slight smile. “Some girl in a turbolift gave me some things to think about a year ago. Guess it finally makes sense.”

Rey let out a small laugh. He was right. The future was theirs. “Let’s go explore,” she urged.

The moisture collector near the dome was broken and decrepit, its collecting system shattered and parts missing. They walked to the edge of the crater. It was obvious no one had lived there in decades. The shifting sands partially filled the courtyard below. One whole edge of the crater was swallowed by a hill of sand that started at their feet and ended near the partially submerged entryway into the dwelling below.

“How do you want to get down there?” Ben asked, surveying ruins.

Rey spied a bleached-out metal panel beside her that was partially submerged in sand. Its edge was jagged and torn, its corners bent and distorted. She tugged it out from its hiding place, shook the sand off it, and walked it over to the sandy slope that led to the courtyard below.

“We sled, of course!” she giggled.

Ben looked at her like she had sprouted a second head. “Sled?” he asked. “Why don’t we just walk down? The slope doesn’t look that steep at all.”

She pushed him toward the metal sheet. “You’ve never been sledding, have you?” she asked. She’d discovered its sheer joy when she was a child. It was the quickest way down a giant dune and required next to no work. She still loved how her stomach would flip as she skimmed down Jakku’s massive dunes toward her speeder, her sack stuffed with bits that she could trade.

“No,” Ben answered sourly. “I missed a lot of things as a child.”

He was right. Their childhoods were stolen from both of them, each forced to grow up far too soon.

“We’re going to change that,” she said. “So, sit.”

He didn’t argue and promptly settled himself onto the center of the scrap metal. “Pull your knees up,” she added as he bent his legs and rested his heels on the lip of the sheet.

“Like this?” he said, looking to her for guidance. His uncertainty and inexperience was nothing short of endearing.

“Perfect.” She smiled. “You can hold on to the sides if you want to.”

He followed her instructions. She gave him a nudge. When he didn’t move much, she shoved a little harder, and Ben began his descent down the slope, skimming over the sand until he came to a rest beside the weathered vaporator in the courtyard. He popped to his feet and brushed the sand from his pants. He briefly scanned his surroundings before turning to face her and gifting her with a small laugh and a smile that spread from ear to ear.

“What are you waiting for?” he called up to her above him. “Are you going to join me or what?”

Rey leapt down the slope, gravity stretching her stride into giant leaps and bounds. He was there at the bottom to catch her, but he miscalculated her speed. She plowed into him as he wrapped his arms around her waist. The both tumbled to the sand with a laugh.

They lay there in each other’s arms, giggling at the frivolity of it all. “How was your ride?” she asked.

Ben brushed the sand away from her cheek, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I could do it again,” he admitted with a grin. “You, on the other hand, have a lot of work to do sticking your landing.”

“You think so?” she said, the first to rise.

As she offered him her hand and hauled him to a stand, he answered, “I know so.”

Rey didn’t wait for him to follow as she poked her head into the entry to the home. Sand spilled into the doorway. The darkened interior had sustained heavy damage at one time that looked more destructive than over thirty years of wind and sand. Its contents long were scavenged or broken. The passageway appeared to be carbon scored as if a bomb had been deployed. The dwelling was a disaster. It would take a lifetime to restore it.

“We’ll be old and grey by the time we clean this out,” Ben said as he stood beside her and peered in.

“Yeah,” she agreed. The dwelling was a mess. “It needs a lot of work.”

“If, and that’s a big if,” he said as he shook his head at the mess, “we can clear all the sand out of there, chances are the moisture collectors aren’t functional.”

“I can fix the vaporators. They don’t look all that complicated,” she answered. Changing the subject, she added, “What was one of the first lessons your uncle gave you about the Force?”

Ben scowled. Rey knew talking about his uncle was likely still a very sensitive subject. There was so much distance between the two of them.

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to remember as he pulled the hair from his eyes. “Something ridiculous like moving a few rocks.”

She bent down and scooped up a handful of the sand before letting it slip through her fingertips. “I think I have an idea how to move all this sand,” she said to him. She knew she could move a mountain of boulders with her mind. What was sand other than an infinite pile of pulverized boulders? The Force guided her to the decrepit moisture farm, and it would be the Force that would help her make it her home.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Ben was right. He had every reason to question this decision. If Coruscant or Chandrila were the bright center of the galaxy, then Tatooine was the antithesis. But dust balls in the Outer Rim were the perfect place to hide in plain sight. No one would be looking for him in the least populated sector on Tatooine. There they could heal. There they could decide their future. They might decide in a few weeks or months that it was time to move on. Or maybe, just maybe, they would spend the rest of their lives calling his ancestral home theirs.

“We can make this work,” she said with an air of confidence.

He glanced upward at the quickly lightening morning sky. BB-8 sat at the lip of the crater and chirped down to him.

“We’ll be right up,” he answered the droid. Turning his attention back to Rey, he said, “The ball’s got a point. You won’t want to miss your first sunrise here. We have the rest of our lives to clean up the place.”

He waited for her to join him before they started their way back up the slope. The sand slipped beneath their boots. When Rey momentarily lost her footing, he was there with a hand to steady her ascent. Once they reached the top of the crater, the eastern sky was bathed in a warming pink that spread out with the promise of the warmth the suns would bring.

“I know what I want to do with the lightsabers,” she announced. She had tucked them away in the small bag slung under her shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment, drew in a calming breath, and let her mind wander among the many tendrils of the Force surrounding her. In her mind’s eye, she saw flashes of horror as Stormtroopers bombed the dwelling and murdered its occupants. She searched further and watched as a young couple held an infant for the first time as the twin suns dipped below the horizon. And as she searched even further, she saw a woman with dark braided hair, sprinkled with grey. Her smile was warm and welcoming. It reminded her of Ben’s.

She sought out the last vestiges of the woman’s signature in the Force, and Rey slowly walked away from Ben and out into the rocky field that surrounded the crater until she came to a stop out in the flat. She knew she had found what she was looking for and lowered herself to her knees before taking the pack of and removing its contents.

The sand crunched around her as Ben followed her out and joined her in a crouch. “She’s here,” Rey said. It was easy to find her. After all, the dormant remnants of the woman's signature were not all that different from Ben’s. She might not have been able to wield its power, but the Force knew her all the same.

“Anakin’s mother?” he softly asked.

Rey nodded; she was certain. “Your great-grandmother.”

She quietly unwrapped the contents from the earth colored cloth and set them gently on the ground. The two Skywalker sabers lay side by side. It was only fitting that they would finally rest where the family line had started. They were instrumental in saving their lives and bringing Palpatine’s decades of tyranny to an end.

Ben ran his fingertips over Luke’s first lightsaber as if he were committing its grooves to memory. “Did you know this was my grandfather’s before it became my uncle’s?” he said.

“I did,” she replied. It was a weapon Ben tried to wrest from her more than once, claiming it was his birthright and not hers to be hefted. It called to her and protected her in her darkest hours, just as it called to Luke a generation before. And when Ben needed it most, when he was unarmed and surrounded on all sides by his former Knights, it had saved his life as well.

But it had such a dark and painful past. She was well aware of how it had been used to massacre Jedi younglings when Anakin was enveloped by the dark side so many years ago. She’d also felt its darkness when she nearly killed Ben, carving his face in two. Like all of the Skywalkers, it was an instrument of light as well as of dark.

“I’d like to think that we’re letting your grandfather finally rest beside his mother,” she thought out loud.

“But why are you burying your lightsaber with it?” Ben asked. “You just made it.”

“It’s not mine,” she answered. Of course, he wouldn’t know from where it came. It had been packed away and hidden before he’d even been born. “It belonged to your mother.”

He let out a small gasp as his fingertips ghosted over the surface of the saber. “But she was never a Jedi,” he said.

Rey covered his hand with hers as if to calm the ensuing storm of emotions. “She studied the Jedi ways with Luke while she was carrying you,” she explained. “But she walked away from it because of a vision.”

Ben gently picked up his mother’s lightsaber, gripping it firmly by the hilt, and appreciated its balance and weight. He studied it for several moments before Rey added, “She turned away from the Jedi because she knew it was the right decision to save you.”

He looked up at her as he licked his dry lips. His eyes were alight with tears threatening to spill forth. “Fat lot of good that did,” he whispered, his voice thick with that guilt that was always bubbling beneath the surface.

“She didn’t do it to keep you from falling,” Rey explained. She wrapped her arm around him and added, “She did it to keep you from dying.”

His shoulders shook, and the tears he had been fighting back streaked down his face. It was part of the healing process, she reminded herself. Ben had never really been able to mourn his mother’s death nor understand how Leia had yearned to welcome her son home. But as she drew him close as he quietly cried, Rey knew he was one step closer to reconciling with his mother.

She didn’t hurry him. She allowed him to work through his torrent of emotions, letting them run their course. When the tears stopped flowing, he straightened up a bit and looked her in the eye, his mother’s ‘saber tightly in his hand. “I know you wanted to bury them both,” he began, “but if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep this one. I don't know what it will take, but I want to try to earn the right to call it mine.”

She palmed his cheek and thumbed the last tear away. She loved how he subtly leaned into her touch. With a smile she answered, “I’m pretty certain you already have.”

He set the ‘saber at his knees while Rey wrapped Anakin’s up with the cloth. She secured everything in place with a leather tie. Placing it on the ground in front of them, she grasped Ben’s hand and placed it over the tiny package, covering his hands with hers. They would bury it together and give it a final resting place.

“Are you ready?” she asked, and he nodded in reply.

Together they closed their eyes and each concentrated on the ‘saber. She felt her power meld with his. They didn’t have to press against the ‘saber to aid it on its journey. Rather they used the Force and it began its descent into the sand. She gently pulled their hands back, lacing her fingers with his as she heard the sands open up. Rey could feel him concentrating as if he was picturing a narrow hole that would swallow the ‘saber in its maw. As he did that, she willed the sands to once again fill the opening. The ‘saber was safe; only they knew where it rested. There it would lay forever, where it could never be used as an instrument of hate or anger again. Anakin Skywalker finally returned home to where it all started, two generations before.

Rey was the first to open her eyes. She was more than happy to give Ben a few more minutes to pray for his family and bid them goodbye. As he opened his eyes, she reached down to her belt and retrieved the small fragment of her repurposed staff tip from her belt. She hadn’t shown it to Ben before, and she was a little surprised he hadn’t asked about it when they exited the _Falcon._ Then again, they both were full of nervous energy when they landed.

“Where’s the rest of your staff?” Ben asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“I don’t need it anymore.”

Using her thumb, she rotated the activation switch on the upper part of the barrel. She still didn’t know what color the blade would be. She’d only just finished its construction while Ben slept during their second sleep cycle in hyperspace. The final steps to complete it had come to her in a dream and she snuck out of their bunk to finish the project on which she had been working for months. For a split second, a flash of green, then blue peeked through the blade emitter. But as the plasma beam erupted from the matrix, it was neither color. The lightsaber hummed to life, and a white-golden blade blazed in the predawn light.

Ben stared in wonder at the ‘saber. “I’ve never seen a gold one before,” he said. “It’s unique like you.”

She’d expected it to be blue, like the other Jedi lightsabers she had wielded. But neither one was truly hers. In her heart of hearts, she knew neither she nor Ben were Jedi. Their shared future was going to take them down a path somewhere that welcomed both dark and light. She was something else. Her kyber knew that, and it chose a different color for her.

Both of them were so distracted by Rey’s new creation that they didn’t hear the noise until it was almost too late. Startled, Rey quickly extinguished her lightsaber, looked up, and jumped to her feet. Ben gripped his saber and joined her as she felt his anxiety spike. They’d made it this far without being caught. While she didn’t think they would have to fight their way out, she wasn’t prepared for a wizened, old visitor leading a four-eyed, short-snouted dromedary species.

“There’s been no one here for so long,” the old woman declared, her Coreworld accent standing out in the Outer Rim as much as Rey’s did. Her nearly white hair was covered in a striped woven shawl and her face was tanned and weathered from lifetime under the suns. If she was originally from the Core, it had been many decades since she emigrated to Tatooine.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded of her.

“I’m Rey,” she answered holding her head high, not willing to hide her identity. She had fought hard to be more than just a nobody from another backwater planet.

By now the light was much brighter, and dawn was about to break. The woman peered at them both and demanded more information.

“Rey who?”

The rosy glow of sunrise welcomed the new day on the horizon. Rey paused to answer the question. She refused to take her family’s name. She wanted nothing to do with the monster that spawned her lineage. She looked to Ben for a moment. And then she saw them in the first light of dawn. At first, she thought she was imagining it, but their forms solidified into something she could make out. She gestured to Ben to look toward the impending daybreak. There in the distance were Leia and Luke, each dressed in white, united in the Life After. While she didn’t see Han, she could feel his presence, too. More importantly, Ben could feel his father’s love. 

She remembered what Ben said before they had departed Ajan Kloss. All he had to offer her were the clothes on his back and his name. She had been right all along; it was all that they needed.

“Rey Solo,” she declared. A slight smile crept across her face, and she finally took the hand he had offered her the year before. He gave hers a little squeeze, and it felt like home.

The old woman said nothing more before tugging her dromedary and moving on. Ben guided her out of the woman’s path and toward BB-8. The suns had returned for the day, and the eastern horizon was awash in a warm, red glow. They paused together to take in the simple beauty that could only be found at daybreak. There, they made their silent vows with Tatoo and her sister as witnesses. They didn’t need an officiant or a legal declaration to validate their union. The two had become one, a dyad joined together in the Force that no one could put asunder. 

“I love you, Rey Solo,” Ben whispered, his hands gently cradling her face on either side as he leaned in to kiss her and seal their sacred promise to each other.

“I know,” she answered with an all-knowing smile under the early light of a Tatooine morning. “I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took the challenge of taking JJ's crap ending on Tatooine and tried to make sense of it all. It definitely does if Ben is there! Tune in to the final chapter where they definitely make this their new home. 
> 
> As always, your comments and kudos warm the heart. Would love to know what you think of this chapter.


	6. A New Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Storms are wonderful  
> The Way the skies thrash and scream  
> It is a reminder  
> That even the skies scream  
> Burdened  
> With the weight of  
> Lost, forgotten dreams
> 
> \--Nikita Gill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are coming to the close of this World Between Worlds Fix-It. It has been a wild ride for me!
> 
> Trigger Warnings: none in this chapter, but smut ahead!

The breeze picked up later that afternoon, but it did little to lower the oppressive heat. Sweat poured down Ben’s back, and his tunic clung to his skin. The shade within the home provided little comfort as it was only marginally cooler inside. He slowly trudged down the hallway to the back bedrooms as he had done a dozen times before to retrieve more junk. Anything of value had been stolen years ago. All that remained was the refuse, the burned and destroyed remnants of a home that ceased to be.

It was back-breaking labor hauling the unsalvageable remains, piece after piece out to the courtyard. He and Rey spent the entire morning trying their best to remove the sand filling the crater. His head still pounded behind his eyes after spending hours concentrating on individual grains of sand and lifting it by the metric ton to the waiting ground above.

He grabbed what looked like a shattered bedside table as well as a smashed lamp and headed back out to the courtyard. He tossed it on the ever-growing heap of garbage outside. While he was thankful it was no longer in the house, Force or no Force, he was not looking forward to hauling it to the surface. His back was starting to ache, and he felt every one of his nearly thirty-one years of wear and tear bear down on him.

Ben wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm. His hair was pulling free from the hair tie he had secured the top half of it back. He paused to pull it free, roughly carding it back again until he gathered into a reasonable hank before securing it once again. He didn’t want to admit to Rey how exhausted he was. But it was honest work, and he knew he’d sleep like the dead later that night with her by his side.

It was time for a water break, he thought to himself as he ambled back inside the entryway and to the darkened respite that waited inside away from the unrelenting sunshine outside. His metal water bottle waited for him on a console in the sitting room. The console had been one of the few things that had neither been stolen nor destroyed. It likely stood the test of time because it felt like it weighed as much as a gundark. A blast couldn’t destroy it, scavengers couldn’t move it, and he couldn’t get it to move more than a few centimeters without using the Force. Sure, it was blackened and filthy. A foot needed replacing as it appeared it was one of the few things that had sustained damage on the heavy cabinet. He could sand it down, maybe refinish it as one of his first domestic projects in their new home. It might not be perfect, but he pictured how it would look in their finished sitting room. It was one thing they wouldn’t have to purchase—or scavenge—to make the house their home.

He grabbed his bottle and leaned against the console. Beads of water condensed on the side of it. Pressing its cool surface against his forehead in search of a little relief, he let out an exhausted sigh and let himself rest for a moment before finally unscrewing the cap and drinking several gulps of the cold water.

As he caught his breath, he reached out with the Force and felt Rey’s presence on the surface above. While he started to clear the house of junk, she grabbed a toolkit and took BB-8 with her to start repairing surface vaporators. Even if the house wasn’t livable yet, they needed to get water production online as soon as possible. The  _ Falcon’s  _ condensers would never be able to keep up with their needs in the long haul.

He took another long pull from his bottle before replacing the cap. It was nearly empty. He’d tackle the kitchen, he told himself before going up to the ship for a refill.

“Ben!” he heard Rey’s voice above. “Come here for a second.”

“I’ll be right out,” he called.

Setting the bottle on the cabinet, he headed back outside. The suns were blinding, and he shaded his eyes with his forearm as peered up to her figure above.

“Go check one of the taps,” she said. He could feel her smile all the way from the courtyard below. She looked beautiful with the headscarf wrapped around her head and solar goggles propped high on her forehead. She’d definitely come prepared for desert life. “I think I got the first three working. Go see if there’s water!”

He nodded and headed to the kitchen. It was a narrow galley, nearly cast in complete darkness. Windowless, it had no access to natural illumination. Rey assured him she could get the lighting working once the solar array was online and they had power.

Ben pulled the portable light from his pocket and illuminated the room in a pale blue. He watched his footing as he descended the four duracrete steps into the kitchen. The many shelves were empty, only filled with dust and cobwebs. The remnants of a handful of smashed plates and bowls littered the floor, and a small pile of petrified animal droppings sat on the countertop.

He spied the tap on the far end of the galley and made his way there. “Yuck,” he muttered to no one as he discovered the mummified remains of a large juvenile womp rat curled in the space where a conservator once may have been.

“Disgusting,” he added under his breath. It was another thing he’d have to remove, the sooner the better. Now he was certain he wanted to set the trash heap on fire, even if it signaled they were there to every Tusken Raider in a hundred klick radius.

He turned the tap. At first it would barely budge. The mechanism had frozen shut from decades of unuse. Not one to be easily defeated, he tried turning it again, this time giving it a small nudge with the Force. Once it passed the sticking point, the control valve opened more freely.

A belch of air spewed out of the tap, and Ben patiently waited. After a few long seconds, a bead of water collected on the rim of the faucet until it was large enough to break free. Another one gathered, and then another. It wasn’t a steady stream of water, but it held the promise that water could flow through the plumbing, water to drink, to cook, to bathe.

He turned off the tap, not wanting to waste the precious resource they had just discovered. He left the dead rodent behind—it wasn’t going anywhere fast, and there would be plenty of time later to drag it to the trash heap. Ben wove his way back to the courtyard and extinguished his light as he stepped outside.

Looking back up at Rey, he announced, “It’s just a drip, but we have water!”

“Brilliant!” she exclaimed, clearly proud of her handiwork. “It will take a bit for the collection tanks to fill and pressurize the system. If I can get the rest of the grid online, we’ll be able to sell the surplus!”

He hadn’t even thought of it as a source of income, and it certainly would be a way to add to their funds. Nothing was free—food, clothing, fuel. Rey was street smart; she could likely trade with the shrewdest of merchants. He, on the other hand, didn’t have many marketable skills that would allow him to blend in. He was done being someone’s weapon. He wouldn’t be able to hold a  _ respectable job _ without risking giving away his identity. But he did have a ship, and he was a damn fine pilot in his own right. Maybe it was time to finally pursue his childhood dream. Maybe it was time to fly. He could make enough to install a deep soaking tub in the ‘fresher for her. Rey loved water, and he wanted to give her an oasis in the middle of the desert. He might need to knock out an adjacent wall to make room, he thought to himself. Yet there would be time to make those decisions later. Right now, they just needed to settle in and learn how to live first.

“Hey,” she yelled down to him before turning her attention to the horizon. “Get your stuff and come up here. Thought we had more time, but there’s a sandstorm heading our way.”

“It’s still sunny,” he called back to her.

Rey pointed in the distance. “Tell that to the storm,” she said. “They spring up pretty quickly. We need to get back to the ship.”

Ben ducked into the home one last time and grabbed his water bottle before he jogged over to the staircase they had unearthed when they had moved all the sand. A few of the steps were broken, but nothing they couldn’t repair with some quick-set duracrete. It was another thing to add to the list of repairs they needed to finish. He bounded up the steps, skipping the smashed one as he made his way to the top.

Rey was waiting for him outside the dome. The wind was starting to swirl more than it had before. Invisible, stinging grains of sand which ushered in the gathering storm on the horizon bit at his exposed skin. He gazed toward the storm. It was massive, as tall as a Star Destroyer, and several times as wide. It swallowed the light as it spread across the desert, a brown wall of wind and destruction. Lightning flashed within its confines, and the distant sound of thunder rumbled across the afternoon sky. It was something neither wanted to face without protection.

“It’s going to push all the sand back into the crater,” he groaned, thinking of all the work it had taken to remove it.

“It won’t be as bad as before. That was nearly forty years. This is just one storm,” Rey promised. Her arm snaked around his waist. “I already sent BB-8 in to close the external air vents, but we need to get inside now.”

Ben didn’t need to be told twice and followed Rey up the ramp to the cool shelter inside. Gooseflesh prickled across his skin as he adjusted to the dramatic change in temperature. Rey closed the ramp and joined him in the lounge. She was already peeling off her headwrap as she entered the room. Tossing her scarf and goggles on the bench, she gestured to his water bottle. “Any left?”

“Just a few sips,” he said, tossing her the bottle. She unscrewed the cap and drained it in two gulps.

“Thanks,” she said.

“How long do you think this is going to last?” he asked.

Rey sat at the bench and tugged her boots off, careful not to spill sand all over the floor. “A few hours, maybe all night,” she said with a shrug before pulling the hair tie out from her bottom hair bun.

He loved it when she wore her hair down. He’d only seen it down a few times, but it had grown longer than when he fought by her side on the Supremacy. She looked so much older when it was down, and he loved running his hands through it. Once the first layer was free, she released the middle one, then the top until her hair cascaded over her shoulders.

He leaned over and rubbed the smudge of dirt from her cheek. Following her lead, he removed the hair tie from his hair as well and placed it on his wrist for safekeeping. “So, what are we going to do while we ride this storm out?” he asked coyly. It sounded like a proposition, but in all actuality, he’d settle for a cool hydro, a meal, and a good night’s sleep.

Rey cringed in disgust. “Don’t come any closer,” she warned. “I’m absolutely filthy!”

“Don’t worry.” He smiled. “I’m just as sweaty and dirty. Probably smell worse too.” He lifted his arm and took a quick sniff of his armpit and declared, “Yes, I most definitely smell worse than you.”

A wicked little grin spread across Rey’s features. She was on her feet in a flash and tugged at his hand, guiding him down the corridor to their cabin. “Come take a hydro with me!” she declared.

His cock twitched at the idea. “You think we will both fit in there?” he asked. The ‘fresher wasn’t that wide, perhaps a square meter in size. It was something they hadn’t tried before. Since their first time together, both of them had become confident in their explorations of each other.

“Only one way to find out,” she teased.

Before he could react, Rey’s hands were at his tunic hem, shoving it up so that he could grasp it and pull it off. As soon as his shirt was on the floor, hers followed in quick succession. He was amazed neither of them managed to wind up on the floor, tangled in their trousers, in the mad dash to strip. One of his boots landed in the ‘fresher, and he was pretty sure she chucked the other into the cabin. 

Rey turned on the water and waited for it to warm up. She was the first to duck into the hydro, her eyes sliding shut as she stepped under the stream and let it wash over her. Her hands slicked her hair back, and she let out a little sigh as Ben watched the rivulets or water stream down every one of her curves.

He waited until she opened her eyes again and invited him in before joining her in the cramped hydro. They both fit, much to his surprise. She rotated them around until he was standing under the shower and tugged him down for a kiss. She hungrily sought out his lips, catching his lower lip gently between her teeth. The heat rose in his cheeks as her tongue probed further until it met his. His hand caressed the column of her throat, his thumb skimmed her jaw.

When they broke apart for a moment to come up for air, Rey whispered, “Let me wash your hair.”

He’d never considered bathing a sensual act. Then again, he’d never bathed with anyone before. His dick was throbbing and hard, standing proudly against his abdomen. “Okay,” he laughed against her lips before stealing another kiss from the corner of her mouth.

Rey reached around her and poured a small amount of shampoo from the bottle on the shelf. She carded her fingers through her hair before lathering up his head until foamy bubbles that smelled like flowers and honey slid down his neck and onto his chest.

“Rinse,” she instructed him as he stepped under the water to wash the shampoo away.

When the shampoo was out of his hair, he gently spun her around until Rey was facing away from him. He poured a generous dollop of shampoo in his hands and rubbed them together to create a handful of foam. He massaged the shampoo into her scalp. She groaned her approval. He loved how the gentlest of touches could make her curl like a sated Loth cat or moan his name with a breathy sigh. He gently pulled her hair away from the side of her neck and sucked a bruise into the angle where her neck met her shoulders. His hands wandered across her slippery body as she leaned back into him.

“Ben,” she said as her eyes slid shut when he palmed her breast and rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He lingered there for a moment before his fingers ghosted down her belly to the thatch of wiry hair at the junction of her thighs. He circled her clit, barely touching it with the pad of his middle finger.

Her legs parted just a bit to welcome him further, and he skimmed his fingers on either side of her entrance. Her breath caught in her throat. He loved teasing her until her sex was soaked with desire. Rey let out the tiniest of whimpers begging for more. He stopped just shy of sliding his finger in before he whispered in her ear, “Soon.”

They needed to rinse off, and he gently spun them around to wash the shampoo away. As she ran her hands through her hair, he stole a kiss from her lips, then pressed one into her neck.

Rey reached for his erection, but Ben pushed her away. “Not here,” he said. He wouldn’t last if she started stroking his arousal. They weren’t racing against time. It didn’t have to be a frantic union. He wanted to worship her with his mouth, his hands, and his cock. He wanted as long as it took to show her how much he loved her.

Once the soap had all run down the drain, he turned the hydro off and stepped out of the shower. He quickly rubbed the towel through his hair, then wrapped it around his waist. Grabbing the other towel before helping her out of the ‘fresher, he gently dried her off, paying attention to her arms, her trunk. She couldn’t help but laugh when he crouched down and his towel slipped off and fell to the floor. It always seemed more graceful in the few holos he had seen when he was much younger.

He raised her leg to rest on his thigh. Running the towel down the length of her leg, he stopped briefly to kiss her knee. “Now the other one,” he instructed as she switched legs and he repeated the process.

Without saying a word, he led her to their cabin. Their clothing littered the floor. A weathered text rested on a shelf. Guiding her to the bed, Ben nudged her back until she lay back, her legs dangling off the edge of the bunk. Her pupils were blown with lust. Easing himself between her thighs, he leaned down and pressed the softest of kisses to her parted lips. He’d never been this bold before. He’d never done this at all before.

He was mesmerized by how her tongue darted over her bottom lip when he caressed the side of her face with his fingertips, gently sliding his fingers down her neck until she let out a quiet moan and her skin erupted in goosebumps. She was so responsive to his touch, and he could feel her pleasure spark and ignite through their bond. Her nipples pebbled in response. Trailing his fingers further down on their journey, her belly quivered at the feather-light touch.

He pressed moist kisses down her neck. He stopped at her collarbone before nuzzling the underside of her breast.

An unintelligible sound spilled from her lips, and her hands dug into his hair. Ben smiled around his kisses as he peered up and saw her gazing down at him, her eyelids hooded with desire.

He nipped at the curve of her breast one last time before he drew her nipple into his mouth and gently sucked. Her breath came in ragged gasps. He wanted to give her so much more. He released her with a wet pop, grabbed the pillow resting beside her, and set it on the floor. Kneeling on the pillow, he continued his exploration to wring pleasure from her body. He dragged his fingertips over the soft skin on the inside of her thighs, intentionally avoiding her cunt for the time being while the strongest person he’d ever met shivered at the slightest touch.

A kiss to the inside of her thigh, and Ben could smell her arousal. It was heady and thick. He’d never been so hard in his life; there was no place else where he wanted to be. He paused to hike one of her legs over his shoulder. Using both of his thumbs, he offered the softest of touches to tease her folds open. Another ghost of a kiss to her inner thigh, another to that thatch of hair on her mound. He was so close now that he could feel her heat.

Her back arched up and she keened out a moan as he leaned in and offered wet kisses to the center of her arousal, exploring her inner folds with the flat of his tongue and tasting the musky desire that was Rey. When he finally latched his mouth to her clit and sucked, she writhed beneath his touch and whimpered for more. He needed to press his palm on her abdomen to keep her from bucking away. Her fingers gripped his hair. He wasn’t sure if Rey was urging him closer or holding on for dear life.

“Just like that,” she said, encouraging him on with a shaky whisper when he flicked the tip of his tongue to the underside of that bundle of nerves.

She was absolutely soaked, drenching his chin with her arousal. He paused his ministrations for only a moment, long enough to gather her slick on the pad of his middle finger. She let out a breathy moan as he eased the finger into her entrance and gently thrust it in and out. His index finger joined the first, and she groaned and cursed, “Oh, kriff…”

Rey was nearly there. It wouldn’t take much to make her tumble over the edge. Her walls fluttered around his fingers. “That’s it,” Ben whispered and urged her on.

He returned his attention to her swollen and engorged clit. A nudge from his nose, a flick of his tongue as he circled it, not quite the stimulation for her to come apart. But when his lips surrounded it and he sucked it in, she quietly cried out as her cunt clenched around him.

His name tumbled from her lips as she gasped for breath. He wouldn’t let up, teasing her with his mouth and fingers, coaxing her to the edge and then shoving her over the precipice until an orgasm coiled up within her, and she shattered around him with a wordless moan dragged out with every breath she took.

She trembled as her climax finally subsided, and he gently withdrew his drenched fingers. He peered up at her, and she gifted him with a blissed-out smile. “That was something,” she said with an exhausted sigh.

He waited for her to catch her breath before he lowered her leg and swung her over until she was fully resting on the bed. Rey slid over, making room for him. It was her silent invitation to continue what he had started. Ben didn’t need to be asked twice and crawled in to lay beside her, the tip of cock flushed red and leaking a small stream of clear fluid. He drew her into a hungry kiss, sharing the musky taste of her on his lips and tongue.

“Your beard is scratchy,” she giggled against his mouth before deepening the kiss further and plundering his mouth with her tongue. His breath hitched in his chest when she traced the shell of his ear that peeked out from his wet and tangled hair. He’d spent his whole life hating them. They were big, they stuck out too much, and they always seemed to signal his embarrassment at the most inopportune times, no matter how much he tried to hide them. But with Rey, they were something he wanted to share with only her. Her touch was gentle, loving.

All he wanted to do was bury himself in her and show her once again how she had become his entire universe. Ben rolled closer to her as they kissed, gently nudging one of his knees between hers. There was nothing more in that moment that he wanted than to have her legs wrapped around him and be nestled in the cradle of her hips.

What he didn’t expect was her hand planted firmly against his chest, impeding him further.

“No,” she whispered as she eased him onto his back. “It’s my turn to take care of you.”

Swinging a leg over him, she deftly straddled his hips. As she leaned forward, her damp tresses tickled his face. Touched-starved most of his life, he felt vulnerable and exposed pinned beneath Rey. His tender heart was hers. He had offered it willingly. It was hers to cherish just as much as it had been hers to crush only days before. Ben was fully and completely hers, and for the first time in his life, he knew what it felt like to be loved by another person and share that love in return.

His hands wandered her back as he drew her close to capture her mouth with his. Reaching behind her, she gripped his impatient erection. It swelled at her touch as she slowly pumped her hand up and down. He had to be careful; as wonderful as her hand felt, he didn’t want to spend all over her small fist. No, he wanted to sink himself in her heat and coax another climax from her as he spilled deep within.

Rey was at her most beautiful—hair wild, cheeks flushed. He loved the constellation of freckles that dotted her shoulders and matched the ones that spread across her nose and cheeks. He adored that warm smile she only made for him. To the rest of the galaxy, she was a warrior. For him, Rey was his cyar’ika, his beloved.

Rey rose up on her knees, never breaking eye contact. She gripped his arousal firmly and stroked it down the length of her soaked slit. Guiding it to her entrance, she bit her lower lip and groaned as she sheathed him deep inside. They sat silent for a moment, neither ready to start the frenzied dance. His hands were on her hips, waiting for her to set the pace.

She reached up and steadied herself by anchoring her hands to the bunk’s low ceiling as she slowly began to rock her hips, sliding up and down on his throbbing cock. He loved how she tossed her head back, lost in pleasure. Ben’s hand gripped her ass, the other slid its way up her taut belly to lay claim to one of her breasts, and she gifted him with a groan as her eyes slid shut.

When the rhythm wasn’t enough, he grabbed her hips and guided her up and down at a more intense pace. She leaned forward and nipped at his neck. He was sure there would be bruises in the morning. He missed the scar that bisected his face. It had marked him as hers forever. These love bites would have to do, even if they would vanish in a day or so.

His heart pounded in his chest as he felt the heat start to bloom in his balls and spread into his belly. But he didn’t want to finish without her. He wanted Rey to be gasping and sated when they finally pulled apart. He reached between them to press his thumb to her apex and draw another orgasm from her. But she grabbed his wrist and pulled it over his head and pinned it to the pillow. With her other hand, she brought his other wrist beside the first. He could break free if he wanted, but he was content to be pressed into the bed. She quickened the pace with each roll of her hips, her clit dragging over his pubic bone with each thrust.

Her movements became erratic as she slowly lost control. A sloppy kiss to his lips, another to his neck, and she panted, “I … I’m …”

Ben broke free from her grip and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her flush to his chest. Rey melted into his embrace, and he took over for her, thrusting up and into her with a punishing pace that finally made her come apart. One hand nestled between her shoulder blades, another at the nape of her neck, and he gasped around her bruising kisses. She groaned into his mouth as her body shuddered around him as she came.

It was all he needed to find his own climax. He thrust into once, twice before clutching her tightly against him and tumbling into ecstasy with her, spending himself within her warmth.

They clung together as they rode out the aftershocks of their shared orgasm, sweaty and exhausted. He waited for Rey to catch her breath before he pressed a small kiss into her temple. He gently withdrew and eased her to her side next to him on the bed. She curled into the crook of his arm and rested her head on his chest.

A week before, they had snarled and spat at each other. This was so much better. The Force sang around them, and the calming peace it imparted wrapped them both in a comforting embrace. Sleep called to Ben Solo, and as he drifted off, he listened to Rey’s gentle breathing beside him and the sandstorm raging all around them. They were safe in each other’s arms, secure in the first home he could remember. The  _ Falcon _ was theirs now, and so was the future.

o.o.o.o.o

Rey wasn’t sure how long they slept. She had no idea what time it was, but it felt like the middle of the night. Sometime in the evening, Ben had turned off the light in the bunk alcove and pulled the duvet over them, but the soft glow from the ‘fresher still shined in the room. She loved waking next to him, snug from the warmth of his body spooning her from behind, his arm wrapped securely around her midsection.

It was in these moments in the small hours of the night that she could pretend they were a normal couple, and there were not such things as Jedi or Sith.

She’d been a light sleeper for years. It was borne of necessity so that she wouldn’t be beaten or robbed in the night. The slightest sound would wake her, but. she wasn’t sure what had woken her. Ben still managed to sleep like a rock beside her, despite the wind howling outside. The sandstorm had likely not moved on. Hopefully it would be clear by morning. They still had so much work to do on the homestead.

Her eyelids grew heavy, and Rey allowed herself to drift back to sleep. She was nearly there when she heard a low rumble and the ship swayed just enough that she could notice. It was just the storm, she told herself. She closed her eyes and yawned. With all of her fidgeting, Ben softly mumbled something unintelligible and rolled away from her.

There it was again. The  _ Falcon _ lurched a little bit again, and this time it sounded like the roof of the ship was being pelted with thousands of projectiles.

They were under attack. 

Rey jumped out of bed and sprinted down the corridor, not caring one bit that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. She had to get the shields up. Ben had warned her about a night attack, and she cursed the fact that neither of them fired up the bubble shield before their hydro. At worst, she would need to get the ship into atmo and escape until the intruders dissipated.

But when she reached the cockpit, she realized that her panic was for naught. They weren’t under attack. Small balls of ice, the size of marbles, pelted the ship from above. The sky was awash with a dozen different lightning strikes. The rumbling she had heard was nothing more than thunder.

“It’s called hail,” a drowsy voice called from the hallway, answering the question that sat silent on her tongue.

“What’s called hail?” she asked, trying her best to hide the panic in her voice.

“The ice,” he explained as he entered the cockpit with the duvet wrapped around him. “Sometimes it rains bits of ice if the storm is strong enough.”

He took another step closer until he was standing behind her and wrapped his arms around her, cocooning her in the bed cover. Her anxiety was palpable. “Don’t worry,” he soothed. “It’s too small to cause any damage.”

“You mean it can be bigger?”

Ben nodded and answered, “I’ve seen some as big as my fist. That definitely puts holes in things,” he answered. Pointing out the view screen, he added, “But check it out. It’s raining!”

Sure enough, rivulets of water streamed down the cockpit window. It wasn’t just raining. It was coming down in sheets. Those clouds she had seen when they reached planetfall had coalesced into a powerful storm that brought water to the parched land around them.

“It never rained on Jakku,” she said. Not once. In all of her years trapped on that dustball, she’d never witnessed a single drop fall from the sky. The only water she ever saw came from cisterns that junk traders hoarded away. A hard day’s work could fetch a large jug of water in exchange for salvageable ship parts. Since moving away, she’d come to love the rain, but there was still something uniquely mesmerizing in watching it fall in the middle of the desert. Tatooine was as barren as Jakku. To watch the thunderstorm rage around them was nothing short of a miracle.

Ben guided them to the pilot’s chair, sliding it back to give them more room. He eased them both into the seat until she was comfortably sitting on his lap before once again wrapping them in the blanket. The sky flashed a brilliant white, and thunder pealed across the night sky.

“Well, this isn’t Jakku,” he whispered into her hair as she curled into his embrace. “We don’t have to worry about Raiders tonight. I doubt they’ll venture out in a storm like this. Besides, they’re pretty leery of the Force.”

“But if you’re concerned,” he continued, leaning forward a bit and reaching for the switches on the console, “I can activate the bubble shield.”

Rey captured his wrist before he could flip any of the switches. The shield would drown out the deluge. “Wait,” she said, pulling his hand back toward her. “I want to listen to the rain.”

It was their first night on their newly-adopted planet, and she was content to just sit there with him and watch the lighting dance across the sky. The sound of the rain pelting down was soothing and hypnotic. Soon her eyes grew heavy, and she leaned into Ben, drifting to sleep to the gentle touch of his fingers combing their way through her hair.

o.o.o.o

Rey didn’t remember how they made it back to the cabin. She may have walked under her own device, but more likely, Ben carried her back. When she woke the next morning, she was tucked warmly in their bed. Her head rested over his chest, and she dared not move as she slowly felt his chest rise and fall. They had only been together less than a week, but she was already learning that she was the early riser of the two.

She didn’t need a chrono to tell it was already morning. It was something innate she had developed living in the desert. She could feel the sunlight in her bones. These early morning moments were the best to get things done before midday’s scorching light made venturing out all but impossible. There was caffa to brew. Her goal was to bring three more vaporators online and build up their water stores faster.

She didn’t want to admit it, but she wanted to see what damage the storm wrought on the property, perhaps try to fix some of it before Ben rose. He was such a worrier, definitely the pessimist of the two. He’d already voiced his concern yesterday that the sandstorm would undo so much of their progress.

Sliding out of bed, she covered him back up, careful not to wake him. Rey dressed in the dark, pulling on clean clothing she found in the drawer before scooping up their discarded clothes from the night before and shoving them in the laundry processor.

A brief detour to the galley, and she prepared a pot of caffa that would be ready by the time Ben woke up. The rich aroma from the caffa beans filled the narrow galley. She already had their day planned out. First, a cup of caffa—his with instacream and far more sweetener than he’d ever admit to anyone, hers with just a splash of the creamer so that she could enjoy the deeper flavors —and a light breakfast in the shadows beneath the  _ Falcon. _ Then they would work until the heat made it impossible. The more they accomplished each day, the sooner they could make the dwelling their home.

Rey had missed how the sand felt beneath her feet and left her boots behind. For everything she hated about her homeworld, there was still a little girl inside that loved the feel of cool sand between her toes.

“Ready to start the day?” she whispered to BB-8 as she strolled past him in the lounge. The little droid rolled alongside her down the corridor, waiting patiently with her as the ramp slowly lowered before they descended to the ground below.

The suns were already climbing their way through the morning sky. She’d already missed their dramatic entrance into the day, but there would be countless more sunrises to glimpse in the future. The storm had moved on; there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Any moisture that their meager vaporators couldn’t collect would evaporate by midmorning. It was going to be a scorcher.

The sand felt wonderful beneath her toes. While she didn’t miss the constant hunger, the loneliness, or the abject poverty, there was a part of her that missed the way the seas of sand smelled, clean and crisp in their own way. She missed how things were simpler under a night’s sky filled with infinite stars shining above. Rey wanted to share those simple joys with Ben now that they weren’t constantly running to or away from something. Time always seemed to slow down in the desert.

She padded her way to the crater’s lip to assess the damage in the courtyard below. To her relief, the sand that blew into it the night before was minimal. Puddles still filled a few recesses in the courtyard’s duracrete surface. But what caught her attention most peeked out from the sand all around her.

The deluge the night before had yielded to life springing up all around her. Tiny green shoots peeked from the surface of the sand, reaching upward toward the suns above. All around her, tender signs of life that had lain dormant for years upon years had sprung to life, and she knelt to look at the plants a little closer. Some would likely be grasses, like the dried clumps that dotted the crater above and below. But some, if they were lucky, would sprout into flowers that would cover the sand for a short period of time before dying back, transforming the landscape from a sterile sea of sand into a beautiful wash of color. She couldn’t wait to share with Ben the hidden beauty that could be found in the desert.

She didn’t realize Ben was up until she saw him descend the ramp with two steaming mugs of caffa. She loved how he looked in simple earth tones now that he no longer dressed in all black. Like her, he too was barefoot and hair mussed from sleep. He slowly made his way to her so as not to spill the hot beverage on himself in the process.

“What’re you looking at?” he asked as he handed her a cup and knelt beside her.

Rey nodded her thanks and accepted the mug. She blew the steam away and took a sip. “The future,” she mused as she gestured to the bits of green poking through the sand.

Ben looked around them and smiled, “They’re everywhere.”

She would cultivate them, Rey promised herself. If they had enough water, she’d make sure some of the clumps of life would not desiccate and wither away. She’d pot some of the plants and decorate the courtyard below, the kitchen, and their bedroom.

For the first time since she landed, she was absolutely certain they had made the right choice to settle on Tatooine. As she watched the suns climb higher in the sky, she was confident that this would be their home.

She and Ben were a lot like the tiny plants that surrounded them on all sides. The seeds from which they sprung had been abandoned and discarded for years. But with enough care, enough love, their strength and beauty would blossom. They would nurture each other just as she would tend to the desert plants, no longer worried that they would be trampled underfoot, torn apart, or left to wither away. The Force had guided them to their new home, and they were both at peace with the decision to start anew far from the galaxy’s bustling Core.

And in time, like the flower buds that had yet to even form, they would discover their true selves in the simple clarity of the desert. Only then would they bloom into the dyad they were meant to be.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me on this journey. This is one of the larger fics I have written, and one that I cherish immensely. I hope this was able to heal some of the wounds that The Rise of Skywalker created. As always, your kudos and comments warm the soul. Would love to know what you thought of this tale.
> 
> Much love,  
> Ceallaigh


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